De Profundis
by zeegrindylows
Summary: The war continues. Captured by Death Eaters, Hermione and Snape must escape and find their way back to Hogwarts. On the way, they encounter the last thing they ever expected. SSHG. Post-DH. EWE.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: All characters seen here are the exclusive property of JK Rowling. She's the genius, I'm the fangirl who can't resist playing with her creations.

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**Chapter 1**

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"_Do you want to know what this new world is? I think you can guess what it is. It is the world in which I have been living_."  
-Oscar Wilde, _De Profundis_

Two months after the fall of Voldemort, the war was still far from over.

Hermione felt privately that they--or she, at least--should have known it wouldn't be, but it was hard to look into a dark future in those first days after it had all happened. Harry had literally snatched victory from death itself, the terror of the Wizarding world was gone, Professor Snape had survived an attack that everyone was sure would kill him; nobody wanted to admit the truth.

But the truth, two months down the road, was no longer avoidable: it would take months still for the war to end.

There were simply too many witches and wizards still out there who had followed Voldemort, far more than Hermione could have believed in her younger, naiver days. They'd killed so many, and there were so many left. It was down to guerrilla warfare now, small skirmishes in woods and villages throughout the British countryside. It was easy when things could be divided into Order members and Death Eaters, but she, and even Ron and Harry, had been forced to admit that they weren't. The Death Eaters were an _elite_ group, not the _only_ group, as she had discovered the first day that she learned of the Snatchers.

Since leaving school and completing NEWTs, she, Ron, and Harry had devoted themselves to Order work at Harry's insistence. All of them agreed that it was of paramount importance to hunt down every last Voldemort supporter left in the country. The Order generally had good information on the Death Eaters' whereabouts and plans, and, working with Kingsley and the Auror department, they had begun systematically capturing and exterminating as many of them as they could.

Down the hall, she heard the clanging of the ancient Grimmauld Place pipes, heralding the start of Ron's shower. She glanced at her watch. Two hours until they needed to leave.

Each of them had developed different habits and rituals to prepare for these encounters with dark magic practitioners. Ron liked to shower beforehand. Harry did too. Ginny and Hermione waited and showered afterwards. To calm herself beforehand, Hermione read a book.

After several very nasty arguments (some of which had even gone so far as to lead to drawn wands), the boys had learned not to disturb her during these times. The boys, of course, meant Ron, who had taken instead to coming out from his shower and looking at her with sad, bewildered eyes while she read. Possibly he knew that she wasn't actually reading, but only turning pages blankly while her mind ran down the list of lost friends and allies. She remembered each face in turn, telling herself that their deaths were what made this hunting necessary. It was worth taking lives to keep any more of them from being lost.

What she couldn't allow herself to consider, at least not for long, was how frightened she was of ending up on the list herself.

The book she'd chosen to read this time was a seventh-year Potions text. The Ministry had been administering NEWTs to all interested comers from their year, and she'd taken them all and passed with flying colors. No E's this time, especially not in Defense. Between the war and Professor Snape, it would have taken her serious effort to achieve less than an O. Professor Snape had volunteered his services as NEWT tutor both in Potions and Defense, and he had made them work incredibly hard, harder than even Hermione had ever worked in school before.

She sighed. Professor Snape was the newest addition to that list of the lost.

Nobody had expected it. After all, he had seemed to recover so quickly, and had been so insistent that he be allowed to return to duty...

When it had become clear that Snape was not as easily killed as they and Voldemort had believed, Ron had muttered darkly that he would probably run off somewhere and hide out until it was all over. Instead, though, Snape had complained endlessly about being held in hospital for a second more than he felt necessary, and insisted that he ought to be helping. Hermione, of course, wasn't in a position to ask him about his motives, but Professor McGonagall had indicated that he simply wished to continue doing what he'd done all along, and to leave it at that.

Harry, who had become quite enthusiastic about Professor Snape in a very short time, insisted that Snape simply wanted people to finally see his true colors, and that with Dumbledore and Voldemort gone, he had no more reasons to obscure his loyalties.

Whatever the reasons, and she doubted she'd ever be able to ask him now, he'd insisted on being allowed to return to duty, and McGonagall and Shacklebolt had allowed it.

But his reflexes hadn't yet recovered, and the Order had underestimated his value as a prisoner to the Death Eaters, it seemed. The Order knew he couldn't be dead. The Death Eaters--a blanket term, now, claimed by all of Voldemort's lingering supporters--had taken to leaving corpses where they would be found publicly. No more secret disappearances. What was the point? They were out to inspire fear now, and little else.

He hadn't even been captured during the course of a true mission. Snape had made a quick trip to Spinner's End to search for anything valuable that might not have been pilfered already--and then he was gone without a trace. Molly Weasley bitterly blamed the Daily Prophet for mentioning its location in their feature article on Snape's life history. Harry had said privately, though, that it wouldn't be hard to discover the location of the house even without that. There were records kept, after all. Anyone with a contact in the Ministry could have found it out.

There was no question as to what had happened to him, although nearly three weeks had gone by without a word, and Hermione was beginning to fear he might be dead. They'd searched high and low, but hadn't been able to find him anywhere.

Hermione turned a page and looked at it without reading the words. How long would they keep him before simply sending the all-too-familiar bolt of green light flying at his chest?

"Hermione," said Harry, cutting into her thoughts and startling her.

"I'm reading."

"I know you've been, but it's time to eat."

"Already?"

"Yeah. Mrs. Weasley made a roast. Come on."

"I'm not hungry."

"You've got to eat anyway. It's the rules. On your feet, let's go."

She closed her book and put it down, going with Harry to join Ron, Ginny, and Mrs. Weasley in the kitchen.

It was a quiet meal. The meals they ate before these missions always were. Death had become a newly intimate reality since they'd lost Fred, Tonks and Remus, and its constant imminence made for a serious mood. Nobody spoke, except for Mrs. Weasley, once, to deplore the fact that Ron had come to the table with his hair still dripping wet and was showering droplets into the rolls every time he turned his head.

"About that time, then, eh?" said Ron, pushing his chair back from the table and running his hands through his still-wet hair.

Everyone stood up. Mrs. Weasley hugged each of them, whispered a word of encouragement in Harry's ear, squeezed Ginny's hand, and saw them to the door. As all four of them turned to Apparate, Hermione caught sight of Mrs. Weasley's face, looking very small and white below a mass of graying ginger hair.

They arrived in the middle of a full-blown disaster. What had been intended as a smallish scouting expedition in Knockturn Alley had, before they'd even got there, turned into an out-and-out brawl. Curses were flying in all directions, Hermione spotted two Aurors down, and what appeared to be three masked Death Eaters darting in and out of alleyways and behind benches and crates. Several other witches and wizards, none of whom Hermione recognized, appeared to be fighting on the Death Eaters' side, as well as several werewolves, a hag, and what Hermione felt quite sure was a vampire.

The enemy had, it appeared, got wind of their plans and staged a quite successful ambush, surprising them all so thoroughly that it appeared the Aurors and other Order members who'd arrived there before Harry, Ron, Ginny and Hermione had barely even had time to draw wands.

They'd discussed the possibility of ambush dozens of times before, prior to every expedition. The plan, as it had been outlined to Hermione, was to take stock of the situation, take any actions necessary for self-defense, and then wait for orders from the first in command. The first in command, in this instance, was an Auror named Caroline Crowley, and she was so far away from where they'd Apparated that there was no possible way she could give them instructions any time soon.

Harry and Ron appeared to take this as an indication that staying to fight was the order of the day, and Hermione, hardly about to run away, did the same.

She couldn't quite say how it happened. Later, she'd have days in which to think about only that and wonder where and what her mistake had been. All that she knew was that she looked in one direction to block a curse, and then, quite unexpectedly, felt something hit her from behind. Strong arms wrapped around her and pinned her wand arm to her side, effectively incapacitating her. Next thing she knew, whoever it was had lifted her into the air, spinning her around as if they were in a dance.

Harry caught sight of them as they began to Apparate, and, eyes wide, he pointed his wand at them and shouted, "_STUPEFY!_"

But before the bolt of red light reached her attacker, she felt the unpleasant and familiar sensation of Apparition, and after that, there was nothing.

0 0 0

When Hermione was next aware of anything, she was lying down, with her eyes closed. She shifted carefully, taking stock of her physical situation. She was sore, but didn't feel like she had any serious injuries. There was nothing impeding her ability to move freely. She began to mentally run through the plans she'd been told to memorize in case she got caught.

She drew a deep breath, pretending to be asleep. The room she was in was well-lighted, and she saw it filtered redly through her eyelids. She risked opening them just a sliver. Her head was turned to one side, and she could see feet, and the hem of a set of black robes.

So, she wasn't alone.

She began to carefully pat the ground around her, looking for her wand. The floor was cold, and felt like wood.

"She's going to wake up soon," said someone, sounding bored.

She made no noise, forcing herself not to hold her breath in her nervousness.

"That much is obvious. What are you planning to do with her, exactly?" An answer meant that there were at least two people in the room, and, though she didn't dare check, she doubted very much that she still had her wand.

"Keep her." Still bored. She pictured the owner of the voice shrugging. "There are ways to use her."

"Keep her _where_?"

"With Snape."

She counted to three and then took a long, deep breath, forcing herself to remain still and listen. Professor Snape wasn't dead. There was good news, at least. On the other hand, he'd obviously been captured by the same people who now had her

"Is that wise?"

"They're both wandless, and the room is very secure. There are wards on every door. If they move at all, we'll know."

"She's one of Potter's best friends. He's going to look for her."

There was a snort. "Brilliant deduction. Of course he's going to look for her, and if he ever finds her--which he won't, by the way--he'll set the wards off, and we'll kill him, and anyone else in the Order that he brings with him."

"If they don't kill us first."

"We've got the advantage over them. The building's unplottable, and it's got good wards. They won't find us, and even if they do, we'll be a match for them."

"You really think it's safe to put the two of them together?"

"Have you got any other ideas? There isn't another place to put her that's as secure or hidden as this one, and they're going to be looking everywhere for her."

"Right. Well, I'm sick of standing around in this place. I'm half-starved and there's nothing to eat but the stuff we brought for Snape last night--and I wouldn't touch that if you paid me. You ought to stock some proper food here."

"Not here often enough or for long enough to make it worth my while. I bring some with me if I'm going to be more than a few hours."

"Let's wake her up already."

"Very well. _Enervate!"_

Hermione felt the tingling sensation of magic washing over her, and, knowing she had no other choice, she stirred slightly and opened her eyes.

She was in a small room, in what looked to be a small, stone house. There were two closed doors, one of which appeared to lead outside, and no windows. Two masked and cloaked Death Eaters stood above her, looking down from the inscrutable metal shields that covered their faces. One of them had long, stringy, dirty-blond hair; the other's was brown and clipped short. Somehow, it was the expressionless masks looking down at her that really brought the situation home to her.

She wasn't bound. She could fight. What was the best way to go about it? Standing up would take too long, and she only had one chance to take them by surprise. With all of her strength, she swung her body around and kicked at them with both feet.

They both stepped back, out of her range, and the other Death Eater drew his wand.

"Calm yourself, Miss Granger," said the brown-haired one. He was the speaker with the bored voice. "If I planned to kill you, your body would be already cold and stiff at Potter's feet. _Petrificus Totalus!_"

The spell hit her full-force and she froze where she was, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. She heard footsteps moving to her side and smelled something rather sour. Then, a warm breath moved over her cheek. God, he was close by. If she could have, she would have flinched violently.

"All right, then?" asked the blond wizard, coming into view. "That's a Gryffindor for you. Can't admit defeat." He bent down and hoisted her roughly up, grunting. Without any further ceremony, he dragged her across the room to the door, opened it, and pushed her in.

Still paralyzed, she hit the ground hard. The wizard pointed his wand at her. "_Finite Incantatem!_" he said. "Welcome home, Granger."

Her muscles freed once again, she backed away from him and into the dark room. There was no point in trying to start a physical fight with two armed Death Eaters who were easily twice her size. Professor Snape was there in the dark, somewhere. Even if he didn't have a wand, there was something reassuring about knowing he was nearby.

"We'll be back, maybe," said the Death Eater, his wand still pointed at her. "_Crucio!"_

The pain, horribly familiar, went through her body like fire, and she screamed. He held his wand pointed towards her for what seemed like an age, but couldn't have been more than a minute. Then he slammed the door She heard a lock click, and a muffled voice muttering a spell to seal the wards, and then they were gone.

"Miss Granger," said the voice of Professor Snape, in a tone as dry as any he'd ever used in the classroom. "What a pleasant surprise."

"Professor Snape," she said, surprised by the strength of the relief that she felt upon hearing his voice. "Are you--where are you?" Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness, and she realized that there was a thin strip of light coming from beneath the door. Most of the room was still in deep shadow, but at least there was a _little_ light.

"To your left, Miss Granger, although it scarcely matters. We are alone, in a small room. Incidentally," and his tone took on something new; he sounded almost angry, "what are you doing here?"

"I'd have thought that was obvious," she said, with some asperity. "I got captured."

"That much _was_ obvious, yes. Let me clarify. What absurd, foolish thing did you do to _get_ captured?"

"It wasn't my fault. It was planned, we were in a group. They ambushed us, and I got hit from behind."

"Did you learn_ nothing_ in Defense Against the Dark Arts, girl?"

"I was shielding myself from a curse! How could I--"

"By keeping your back to a wall at all times, to suggest only one possible course of action. Merlin, girl, I thought you had brains."

"You can hardly talk," she snapped. "You're here too."

He snorted. "If anything, my own underestimation of the enemy gives me more right to criticize yours, not less."

"That's absurd."

"We will have many hours in which to argue the point, Miss Granger, assuming that I continue to speak to you at all."

Hermione rubbed her arm, which she'd landed on when they threw her into the room. "What is this place?"

There was a very faint rustle of fabric, oddly loud in the silence that surrounded them. She guessed that he'd shrugged. "A house," he said. "I've been more or less alone since I was first brought here. They come at least once a day, for purposes of ... interrogation."

The way that he said it made Hermione shudder. "Have you--did you tell them anything?"

"Miss Granger, I am an experienced spy, and have been for almost as long as you have been alive. I am aware that, amongst Gryffindors, I am not ... renowned for my social graces, but I believe even you ought to be aware that it is bad policy to insult somebody that you will most likely be living in close quarters with for some time."

"It's been three weeks," she said.

This statement was greeted with silence. Just when she thought he was not going to speak again, he said, "I underestimated. Time is difficult to judge here, even with practice."

"We've been looking everywhere for you."

"Obviously not."

Hermione felt in the direction of the doorway until she found the wall. Inching back towards it, she leaned her back on it for support. Closing her eyes, although it made no difference to the darkness that surrounded her, she buried her face in her hands. "They'll find us soon," she said, trying not to think about the three weeks of fruitless searching for Professor Snape that had already gone by.

"Dare to dream, Miss Granger. There is food, of a kind, against the back right-hand corner of the room. Avail yourself of it, if you grow hungry. If you wish to defecate, we have been very kindly provided with a bucket in the back left corner of the room. It has been enchanted with a Banishing Charm, although I suspect that was more from squeamishness on the part of our captors than a desire for our comfort. And now, I am going to sleep."

"You're going to _sleep_? How can you sleep at a time like this?"

"Miss Granger," he said, amused, "what time are you referring to? I have been here for three weeks, as you so kindly pointed out a moment ago. The novelty has worn thin."

And with that, he left Hermione to the darkness and silence.

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**Author's Notes: **A great many thanks to Heather Jewell, who suggested the plot line that inspired this story. Thanks also to RenitaLeandra, the best and fastest beta in history. 

The title of this fic is taken from the title of a piece of prose writing by Oscar Wilde, written during his imprisonment at Reading Gaol. Translated, it means "out of the depths."


	2. Chapter 2

DISCLAIMER: All characters seen here are the exclusive property of JK Rowling. She's the genius, I'm the fangirl who can't resist playing with her creations.

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**Chapter 2**

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_"Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle round one centre of pain."_  
-Oscar Wilde, _De Profundis_

Whether Snape was really asleep or not, Hermione couldn't tell. Nor could she tell anything else. If she strained, she could hear him breathing, but other than that, there was no noise. The silence was unnerving, especially after months of living with Harry, Ron, and Ginny at Grimmauld Place. No wonder he lost track of time here. It seemed to have stopped altogether.

Eventually, she fell asleep; at least, she thought she might have. It was difficult to tell, when her last conscious thought was of darkness and silence, and her first waking thought was the same. There was a noise now, though, which hadn't been there before. She didn't immediately recognize it, but she had time to listen and analyze. Eventually it came to her: chewing. Snape must be eating.

It was a strangely comforting sound to hear while sitting in that room. The sounds of a man eating, even if he didn't seem to be doing it with gusto or relish, were sounds, thanks to Ron, that she associated with warmth and home and happiness.

But the thought of Ron, so far away, was an unfortunate one. Homesickness overwhelmed her in a sudden rush. What was he doing right now? She had no idea what time it was. He could be asleep, or talking to Harry, or out somewhere looking for her even at that moment. Or perhaps he was dead. Perhaps he'd fallen in the same ambush that had led to her capture. A lump formed in her throat, and she swallowed. How long ago was it that she'd been at Grimmauld Place, listening to him shower and feeling pre-emptively annoyed by the knowledge that, when he was finished, he would want to spend time with her instead of leaving her to her thoughts?

The tactile memory of him filled her senses, made stronger by the absence of other sensations. She could feel his arms around her, his shoulder under her cheek.

"You're awake?" she said to Snape, anxious to reassure herself that she wasn't utterly alone.

The chewing stopped.

"In theory," he said at last. "Miss Granger?"

She raised her eyebrows, though she knew he couldn't see. "Who else would it be?"

"I ... was not sure that you were actually here."

"Oh," she said, unable to come up with an answer that felt adequate.

She heard him take another bite and chew it rather loudly. "After a certain amount of time," he said, when he'd swallowed, "the mind can play tricks on itself. Are you hungry?"

"I guess so."

"Come here."

She blinked, and felt again the unnerving sensation of vertigo that came with unexpected blindness. "Where are you?" she asked, hoping he'd speak again.

"Follow the sound of my voice." He sounded impatient. "You might as well start learning at once how to navigate in the dark. It is nearly always dark in here."

The floor was wooden, and seemed flat enough. Still, not knowing anything about the room that held her, Hermione didn't want to stand up. She crawled on her hands and knees in the direction that she thought his voice had come from, until she was stopped by the unpleasant sensation of her head hitting the wall, hard.

"A little more to the left, I think," said Snape, sounding amused.

"That _hurt_," said Hermione, ashamed to discover that she was near tears.

"Of course it did. Next time, keep track of where the walls are. You will learn the dimensions of the room soon enough, I assure you. They are not over-large. Now, if you're hungry, come here."

She tried again, this time keeping one shoulder against the wall so that she could tell where it was. This time, instead of hitting the wall, she bumped into him, although not as hard. She'd learned, at least, to crawl slowly.

"A tolerable effort. Sit."

His commanding tone, so much like the one he always used with students, made her want to protest. But what was there to protest about? From the direction of his voice, he was sitting on the floor, so there was no point in standing up. Nor did she want to eat while on her hands and knees.

She sat.

A hand brushed over her thigh. She jumped.

"Stop moving." She heard a soft scuffing noise, and then he located her hand with his, and nudged it with his knuckles. "Open your hand, girl," he said impatiently. When she did, he pushed a piece of bread into it.

She brought it to her nose and sniffed. It smelled faintly rancid, and felt strangely dusty. She wondered if it was moldy.

"You might as well eat it," he said. From the sound of it, he was very close indeed. "You won't get anything else. Whatever state of decay it's in, it won't kill you."

Hermione took a bite. It tasted as dry and dusty as it felt, but it was edible. After three bites, though, her jaws were beginning to tire, and she was horribly thirsty.

"Is there any water?"

Again, a hand fumbled along her body, and then, when he'd located her hand, he set a cool, smooth bottle down on the floor beside it. "Conserve it," he said. "That is all we have between us until they return and deign to bring more."

She took a sip. The coolness of the bottle had promised cool water, but this was room-temperature, and tasted as if it had been sitting for some time. Still, it was water, and it wet her mouth enough to let her continue eating.

"When _will_ they come back?"

There was another noise of fabric rubbing on fabric. When he spoke, his voice was further away, and she knew he'd repositioned himself. "They will return when they wish to return. I have never been left for longer than twenty-four hours, as far as I can tell. Sometimes it is far less."

She took another bite and chewed it slowly, trying to think about how to ask the next question. The thought of it left her with a heavy, anxious feeling in her chest. She swallowed, and took just enough water to wet her lips.

"You said before that they ... interrogate you," she said, trying to sound casual.

Another silence. "Yes," he said.

"Does that mean--do they--"

"Yes." His voice was grim.

"What are they after? I mean, what do they want to know? Any information you've got about the movements of the Order is three weeks out of date. We haven't got much else that's still a secret. What are they af--"

"I prefer not to ask what they are truly after. Ostensibly, they want statistics on Order membership and plans, and about Potter's weaknesses. There are, however, much easier ways to obtain such information. They are not interested in answers, Miss Granger."

Snape was no more talkative than he'd ever been, which Hermione found somewhat surprising, given that he'd spent three weeks with no company other than Death Eaters who only wished to torture him. He soon got up and moved away. He, apparently, felt comfortable enough to walk. What had he done for the last three weeks, in his hours alone in the dark?

"I'm going to explore," she said, mostly to gauge by his answer where he was.

"I would advise you against standing up until you are more familiar with the layout of the room. There are items on the floor that you--" he stopped very abruptly. "Come here," he whispered sharply. "Get behind me."

"Where are you? What's going on?" She felt the floor blindly, crawling towards his voice.

"Follow my voice. They are here."

She crawled another few feet (she guessed), and then felt his hands reaching out towards her. As soon as they touched her body, he felt for her wrist and grabbed it, pulling her roughly towards himself.

"Get behind me," he whispered again, his voice urgent. "Stay seated. Do not meet their eyes. And, if you can possibly keep your mouth shut, do not speak."

"How do you know--" she began, but she stopped. She'd heard it too: voices, saying something that sounded like an incantation to bring down the wards. Snape's hearing, it seemed, was far better than hers. Perhaps the time in the dark had amplified his other senses, as if he had really gone blind.

The voices were male, and she felt a momentary, shining hope that it might be Ron and Harry. Bill was a curse-breaker. Perhaps they'd found her and brought Bill to break through the wards.

A moment later, though, the wards came down, and she heard the door opening in the next room.

"It's really Granger?" said one voice. She didn't even bother thinking about what the speaker was saying for the first few moments. It was enough for her that it wasn't Ron or Harry.

"It's her, all right." She recognized the voice of the blond Death Eater.

"Excellent. I want to see her."

Beside her, Snape made a sudden, jerky movement. "Be still," he whispered, so quietly that she almost couldn't understand him. He thrust some sort of garment into her hands. It was covered with buttons, and she guessed that it was his frock coat. "Cover yourself with this. Pretend that you are sleeping. It is a feeble attempt to make yourself inconspicuous, but perhaps they will pass you over for the time being."

She heard him stand up and walk again. He was wearing shoes. The noise they made on the floor seemed horribly loud, after he'd whispered so softly.

The door opened.

Light flooded the room, and Hermione was subjected to a new kind of blindness, just as complete as that of darkness. She squinted and ducked her head a little lower behind the coat, waiting for her vision to adjust to the daylight now streaming into the room. She was partially shielded by the door, which had opened towards her, but looking at the light was enough to make her eyes water.

Snape, though, didn't shade his eyes. As far as she could tell, he didn't even flinch. He simply stood there, looking at the man who stood silhouetted in the door.

"Snape," said the man.

Snape's lip curled and he wrinkled his nose as if he'd just smelled something terribly unpleasant. "Rodolphus."

Rodolphus Lestrange looked around the room, which was still dark in the corners. "_Lumos!_" he muttered, holding his wand up and looking around the room. He bore a strange resemblance to his dead wife, one that was strong enough to leave Hermione nauseated. Harry had passed on some of Sirius's information about the inbreeding amongst purebloods, and she wondered how closely the Lestranges and the Blacks had been linked before the union of Bellatrix and Rodolphus.

He poked the wand into her corner last, and a feral look of triumph came over his features. "Ah," he said, taking a step towards her. "This is_ most_ agreeable, is it not, Severus? A Mudblood to keep you company. Let it not be said that we are unkind to you, old friend. You always did have a taste for dirty blood, didn't you?"

Snape, who looked gaunt and paler than ever, moved his hand instinctively towards the empty wand holster on his sleeve. "She knows nothing. A useful bargaining chip, perhaps, but not a source of information."

"You don't expect me to believe that, do you?" said Lestrange conversationally. "Harry Potter's best friend? The famous Mudblood prodigy, not know anything? I hardly think that the Order would neglect to make use of someone so talented."

He had taken two more steps towards her. Another step and their feet would nearly be touching.

He dropped to a crouch and looked at her at eye level, licking his teeth and looking thoughtful. "I see why Potter likes her. If she wasn't so filthy, I might be interested myself. It's no good pretending to be asleep, little girl." He reached forward and grabbed the frock coat she'd covered herself with, tossing it aside.

"Potter isn't likely to bargain with you if she's been harmed," said Snape.

"On the contrary, Severus, I think he will be _very_ inclined to accede to my demands, once I have demonstrated that I am willing to injure her and will require incentive _not_ to do so. A few trinkets or garments, perhaps a photograph, and I imagine he will surrender himself quite swiftly."

"You demonstrate a gross misunderstanding of the Gryffindor mind, Rodolphus."

"Mm," said Rodolphus, not looking away from Hermione. "What about _your _mind, Severus? Tell me, what could possibly make you take an interest in her? You know as well as I that it would be wiser for you to cease attempting to draw my attention away from her and onto yourself. I thought you called yourself a Slytherin."

Hermione, though she was no longer pretending to be asleep, kept her mouth shut, as Snape had instructed her to do. Snape kept his shut as well, unwilling or unable to answer the question.

"If you have a weakness, Severus, it is that you are far too solicitous for the well-being of your students. The Dark Lord remarked on it many times during your tenure as Hogwarts Headmaster. It was a regrettable failing on your part that you were so unwilling to see them suffer." His wand was still out, and he was twisting it this way and that in his hand, watching Hermione with an expression that made him look even more frighteningly similar to his dead wife. "I have long since thought that it was time we attempted finding other ways to break you. Granger's arrival is quite convenient in that regard."

Snape was standing behind Lestrange, so it was only Hermione who saw the fleeting look of horror and understanding in his eyes. She had the very unpleasant feeling that she had missed something important.

"Waters," said Lestrange.

For a moment, Hermione couldn't understand what he could possibly mean. Then the other Death Eater entered the room, wand out. After eyeing Snape suspiciously, he turned to Lestrange. "What do you need?"

"Take the girl."

The Death Eater, Waters, crossed the room in two steps, bent down, and lifted Hermione off the ground. He was strong, and not gentle, and her ribs ached from the pressure he put on them. He carried her through the door. Lestrange followed, closing and locking it before nodding to Waters, who dropped her on the floor.

"You had the honor of meeting my wife at one point, I believe," said Lestrange, looking at Hermione as if she were a beetle he very much wished to step on.

"I met her," she said.

"A fine figure of a woman," he said. "Don't you agree?"

Hermione scowled at him. "Not particularly."

He smiled coldly. "I have news for you, Granger. A Weasley has died. The youngest son, I believe. Hit by a curse." He sniffed dismissively. "The funeral's to be held in two days."

She sat up, rubbing her side and wondering if she'd broken ribs from the force with which Waters had thrown her to the ground. A Weasley dead? The youngest son--that meant Ron. She looked at Lestrange, who was watching her closely, and decided that she didn't dare speak a word. She bit her lip instead, tears welling up in her eyes.

0 0 0

Severus stayed rooted to the spot after the door closed and darkness engulfed him again. It had begun to feel familiar, especially as he had learned to associate light with pain. He could hear muffled voices outside, but couldn't make out the words. He wondered what they were telling her, and if it were true.

Feeling the way with his feet, he shuffled carefully towards the door and laid his ear against it. He still couldn't make out what they were saying.

A moment later, it started. She began to scream. He flinched, pressing his face hard against the door and straining to hear. They must be using Cruciatus. Nothing else could tear sounds like that from a person's throat. He had never heard her scream before. It was a strange noise, coming from her. She was prone to anxiety about marks, and to being overly gregarious in classes, but, her tendency towards shrewishness notwithstanding, his experience of her rarely involved loud noises.

It didn't last long, though. The drawn-out screams were soon replaced by smaller, softer cries, punctuated by the muffled sounds of a body being beaten. He began to feel ill. This was his fault. Whatever Rodolphus said about his desire to prove his ruthlessness to Harry Potter, Severus doubted very much that they would be torturing her if they didn't believe it would affect him. Rodolphus had said as much to him just before they carried her out.

He frowned. There was no love lost between the girl and himself. Still, Rodolphus was right. She had been his student. He'd spent six years nurturing in himself a desire to protect her, especially given her association with Harry. Her safety had frequently meant Harry's, and he had sworn to ensure that Harry stayed alive. It was difficult to simply forget the toil he had put into preserving her life thus far.

It was so hard to reckon time. Eventually he walked away from the door and sat down beside the meagre crusts of bread still left to them. Feeling carefully with his fingertips, he divided them into equal portions. He took his time about it, breaking the pieces apart with the precision that years of brewing had given his fingers. When he had them exactly equal, he set them down carefully beside the water bottle.

She screamed again. After a moment, he picked up one of the pieces of bread and broke it again, removing a third from its length. This smaller piece, he set next to the other. He would reserve some extra for her. She was not yet used to deprivation as he was. She would need the nourishment, after this ordeal.

Eventually, he ceased to hear anything. There was nothing left but the familiar darkness, and a sick feeling of guilt.

0 0 0

Even though she had heard their conversation with Snape and their stated intentions for her, she couldn't believe them for long. They weren't going to hold her, or use her to extort Harry. She felt sure they were going to kill her and dump her body on the steps of the Ministry, as they had done with so many others. She was going to die.

And, finally, it stopped. Convinced that the killing curse would soon follow, she determined to meet her death like a Gryffindor, and she raised her head, looking Lestrange full in the eyes and refusing to cry out or move in anyway.

He laughed. "Very pretty attempt at bravery, girl. I am curious, do you know what they say about Unforgivable Curses? They say that you have to_ mean _them. Tell me, what is your opinion? Do you think I lack conviction? Do I lack the will to wipe that noble expression off your filthy Mudblood face?_ Crucio!_"

Hermione screamed and screamed, until there was nothing left in the world except for pain, and the sound of her own screaming, and then there was nothing left but pain, because her voice had given out. Just when she thought that she would surely go mad, it stopped. They thrust a glass of water to her lips and forced her to drink. Then, shoving a loaf of crusty, stale bread into her hands, they put her back in the dark room and closed the door.

They hadn't even _tried_ to get information from her.

She managed to get to her hands and knees before she began to retch. When her stomach was empty, she crawled a few inches away from the puddle of half-digested bread and fetid water, and collapsed in on herself, curling up in a ball and sobbing.

Through her pain, she was vaguely aware of the fact that Professor Snape was quite nearby. She could hear him moving, and then, yes, there he was, feeling for her through the darkness.

"Miss Granger," he said insistently. She blinked, though her eyes saw only darkness. He sounded much, much farther away than she'd thought he was.

He said her name again, and she opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. She coughed instead, and then her stomach gave a mighty heave, trying to expel things that were no longer there. Her skin felt cold and clammy, and she was slick with sweat.

"Miss Granger," he said a third time, louder, and he was so close to her that she could feel his breath on her face. "You must stay awake," he said. "You are not accustomed to this."

She had only a few seconds to consider the implications of his words--he _was_ accustomed to it, apparently. Then, against every expectation she might have ever formed, had she been capable of thinking at all, he lifted her awkwardly up and held her in his arms. She went limp and lay against him, but he put her down again almost immediately.

"Lie still," he said commandingly. She felt him move, and he lifted her feet and held them in what she presumed to be his lap. "You are in shock. Do not go to sleep. Alert me if you feel that you cannot breathe. Do not be afraid."

"Water," she said, fumbling for the word through the dizzy fog in her brain.

She felt him shift, and then he leaned over her and supported her head while she drank. When she laid her head down on the floor again, he resumed his post at her feet.

She lay that way for a long time, too exhausted to move. Every nerve in her body was in pain, as if she'd been stabbed with a thousand needles at once. It was a feeling she'd experienced once before, and she let her mind dwell on the memory. The situations had been both so similar and so different. First capture, and then imprisonment (at least once), and then she'd been tortured by a Lestrange. Ron had been there the first time, though. Even when they'd dragged him away from her and locked him up, she'd been able to hear him, screaming her name again and again.

Snape hadn't made a noise.

Not that she'd expected him to. She and Ron were in love, and he, unlike Snape, could hardly be accused of being phlegmatic.

"Are you awake?" said Snape, at length.

"Yes." Her throat and mouth felt dry, and she shivered.

"How do you feel?"

"Cold."

"Do not move." He set her feet down on the floor and moved away. When he returned, she felt the weight of his frock coat as he draped it over her, his fingers touching her lightly here and there to discover where she was.

After some time, he asked again, "How do you feel? Are you in pain? Are you warmer?"

"Yes. No," she whispered. Her teeth were chattering, and she wondered if she had a fever.

"I have nothing more to cover you with. You must stay warm. I have no wish for you to die while in my care. I will have Potter and Weasley to answer to when they discover it."

She couldn't tell if he was joking or not. The mention of Ron brought back to her mind what Rodolphus Lestrange had told her, and she began to cry. Snape didn't ask her why.

"In the interest of preserving your life, and for no other reason, I intend to ... keep you warm, Miss Granger," he said, sounding like a man about to undertake an incredibly unpleasant duty. He lay down beside her, and he draped his arm over her, gathering her body close to his.

"Don't," she said, her voice weaker and more pathetic than she'd intended it to sound.

"I assure you," he said irritably, his mouth evidently very close to her ear now, "it is far from pleasant for me. I will not, however, let you die when mere physical discomfort on my part could have prevented it."

Hermione, too cold and too tired to argue that it didn't matter, Ron was dead and there was no point in staying alive because they would never be found, submitted. She lay on the floor in Snape's arms and wept for Ron.

0 0 0

The following days settled quickly into monotony, broken only by occasional meetings with Rodolphus Lestrange and other Death Eaters, who always remained masked. Sometimes they asked questions about Harry, or offered tidbits of information. Other times, they said nothing. Frequently, they simply pulled her or Snape from the room and did nothing, sitting and staring at them for minutes or hours. Hermione wasn't sure what she dreaded more during those times. It was terrible to sit there and wait, wondering how long it would be before they tortured her. She eventually learned to prefer the times when they got straight to it. The uncertainty that came with waiting was often worse than the physical pain, unless they used the Cruciatus Curse.

It was terrible to wait in their presence, but it was equally terrible to be left alone in the dark. She and Snape were hardly friends, but there was a certain closeness that was an unavoidable side effect of spending hours with someone, even if those hours were largely filled with silence. He was the first to undergo one of these sessions. That first time, left alone without the muffled sounds of beating and speaking through the door, Hermione was convinced they'd killed him. It was nearly impossible to tell how much time went by, but when time began to drag ever more slowly, despair crept up on her and she felt a depression worse even than what had tormented her since she'd learned of Ron's death. She was truly alone.

But then they'd opened the door and sent him back in, unharmed. Soon, she learned to feel almost relieved to hear the sounds of his torture, horrible and sickening as it was. As long as they were intent on causing him pain, he was alive and would return. She wouldn't be left by herself in the dark.

The first time it happened to her, she lay on the ground at their feet, feeling their impassive stares as they watched her. Were they waiting for her to do something? Were they going to kill her? She wondered if Snape was waiting for news that she was dead. It was no easier to mark the passing of time in their presence than it was in the dark. It was simply hour after hour of endless waiting.

One day, when they brought him back from one of these periods of silence, they performed a charm that lit the room. The sudden brilliance was painful, and Hermione shielded her eyes.

Snape walked slowly back into the room and stood still until they closed the door, at which point he sat down and, picking up a small strip of wood that he had apparently prised up from the floor at some point, he began to carefully scrape grime out from beneath his fingernails.

Hermione, who had taken some time to finally grow used to the lack of really proper hygiene, watched him with interest. She hadn't had a shower or cleaned her teeth in ages. Her hair was lank and heavy with grease, and, though she'd stopped noticing it, she was sure that she stank.

"Professor," she said, inspecting a hole in her jeans that she hadn't noticed before, "how long have I been here?"

He waited a moment, studying her thoughtfully before answering. "I could not say for sure," he said. "It has been demonstrated that my reckoning of time can be ... inaccurate."

"Could you guess?"

"A month."

"They haven't said anything about Harry."

"No."

She hugged her knees to herself. "Why not?"

He shrugged laconically. "I doubt that they have actually been in communication with him."

"Then what's the point?"

He looked at her again, raising his eyebrows in surprise. "I thought you would have understood by now. They do not require a _reason_. I am a traitor, and you are Harry Potter's friend. That is enough for a death warrant. Or, I suppose, for torture." He crossed his legs at the ankle, stretching them out in front of him. "After all," he said softly, "they can only kill you once."

"You mean they're just torturing you because they _can_?"

"You sound surprised."

"I--I hadn't really thought about it before now."

"There is valuable information they could extract from me, if they ever succeeded in extracting it from me. They do not wish to. Rodolphus Lestrange is a sadist, Miss Granger. I trust you are familiar with the term."

Hermione shivered. "Have they ... given you any news?"

He blinked. "News?"

"When I first came, they told me that--that Ron was dead," she whispered. It was the first time she'd ventured to speak of it. Somehow, Snape was easier to talk to when he was visible and not merely a disembodied voice in the darkness.

"Do you believe it?"

"I don't know. I don't want to believe it, but if I refuse to believe it, and I--_we_ ever get out of here, and it turns out to be true..."

"It is a conveniently disturbing piece of information to give you." He'd averted his eyes, as if he preferred not being able to see her. "I doubt I should trust it, if I were you."

She took a deep breath. She was long accustomed to trusting him and accepting his words. Even when he wasn't in a position to truly reassure her, it helped that he made the attempt.

"Why did they light the room?"

He wrinkled his nose. "I imagine to let us experience some sensation of disgust at our relative appearances. Days without proper hygiene are unflattering to you, Miss Granger."

"You can talk," she snapped.

"I, however, am used to going without proper hygiene. Or so I have been informed."

She smiled before she realized what she was doing. It felt strange to smile, as if her face wasn't used to it anymore.

"Your nose is broken," he added conversationally.

Hermione's hands flew to her nose and she frowned, feeling the small, painful bump there. "I thought it might be. I hoped not, though."

"The damage is not irreparable."

"I--it's easier to talk when the lights are on."

This statement led to the longest pause yet. Finally, he shifted where he sat, crossing his arms and studying her curiously. "I disagree," he said.

"Why?"

He shrugged. "I have very little to say in either case."

"I noticed. Why don't you want to talk?"

"I believe I answered that question a moment ago."

"Not really. I don't have much to say, but I could still talk."

"A blindingly obvious fact," he said, sneering slightly.

She hugged her knees more tightly to her chest, trying not to feel the sting in his words. "I just--it makes me feel less alone to talk."

"You are not alone." He sounded almost surprised by the idea. "Talking or not talking is immaterial."

"Why is it easier to talk in the dark?"

He sighed. "You are a former student. I am accustomed to certain formalities. It is easier to forgo them when I cannot see you."

Hermione let her legs slide away from her chest and lay down, pillowing her head on her hands. She'd grown used to sleeping on the hard floor, and had learned to be comfortable there. The light was giving her a headache, and she closed her eyes. "Oh. I don't see why it matters, anyway. You don't talk."

"Do you wish me to talk more?"

Surprise made her open her eyes again, and she looked at him. "Does it make a difference? I mean, if I wanted you to--if I asked, occasionally--would you?"

His face was impassive. "It might be better than listening to your endless crying."

She wanted to turn away from him, to tell him not to bother putting himself out on her account. But the offer of an occasional real conversation, as opposed to terse exchanges about food or drink or injuries was too good to pass up. She nodded.

"I shall consider it, Miss Granger."

"You might call me Hermione."

He snorted. "I might. For now, however, I plan to sleep."

"Why sleep now? Don't you want to enjoy the light while it's here?"

He met her eyes. "Do not make something special of it, Hermione. It will be gone soon enough, and you will regret its absence more if you do."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Sunday is update day, just so you all know. 

Many thanks to Renita Leandra for her prompt and thorough beta work. She is made of love.


	3. Chapter 3

DISCLAIMER: All characters seen here are the exclusive property of JK Rowling. She's the genius, I'm the fangirl who can't resist playing with her creations.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

* * *

"_She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none __may track me to my hurt:__ she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole._"

-Oscar Wilde, _De Profundis_

They extinguished the light again, just as Snape had predicted. Hermione wished that she'd been wise enough to take his advice and sleep through it.

In spite of the fact that she'd requested it, she found Snape's use of her first name somewhat disturbing at first. She hadn't really expected him to accede to her request that he use it, especially not without a fight. It was strange to hear 'Hermione' in his low, quiet voice.

Not only had he begun using her name, he'd started to talk, too. They never had conversations of much depth, but they discussed Potions and Defense--and other, stranger things too, like their preferences for the weather, or favorite foods served at Hogwarts. Snape (she didn't call him Severus) had evidently taken her seriously that it didn't matter to her if conversation was entirely trivial or not.

They never spoke of their own personal histories. They never spoke about other people. Hermione thought about Ron frequently, and about Harry almost as much. Talking about them with Snape, though, simply wasn't an option she was willing to consider. It was easier to simply work on convincing herself that nobody else existed but Snape, herself, and their tormentors.

As time went by, she gradually succeeded in thinking of Ron and Harry less. It was easier that way. The more she thought about them, the more that she hoped for rescue, and the more she was disappointed when it didn't come. She even began, slowly, to separate Snape from the rest of the world in her mind. There was Professor Snape of Hogwarts, and there was Snape, the man who shared her imprisonment, and they were not the same.

0 0 0

Severus awoke fully and completely. It was still dark, but something was different. Something was wrong.

He listened carefully for any hint of Lestrange or the other Death Eaters, but didn't hear them. He did, however, hear Hermione breathing. He listened carefully, but didn't hear anything amiss there, either.

Still, the sense of something wrong was persistent and inescapable. He closed his eyes--not that it made any real difference--and sniffed the air. There was something there. What was it?

And then he identified the scent. Blood. Hermione must be bleeding.

His heartbeat quickened anxiously, and he went towards the spot that she favored when she rested. "Hermione?" he said, anxiety making his voice sharp.

"Are they here?" she whispered. Her voice was sleepy, and he could hear the soft scraping of her hand on the floor as she felt for him.

"Be still," he said, following her voice to where she lay. "Are you injured?" He reached out just far enough to feel the warmth radiating from her body with his fingertips and know exactly where she was. They must have come and taken her. How had he slept through it? True, he was frequently exhausted by the strain and the darkness, but to sleep through Lestrange and whoever else might have come, to sleep through Hermione being beaten to the point of injury--

"Injured?"

He heard her sit up and felt her fingers seeking him. They had grown strangely accustomed to these touches as time had gone by. It was impossible _not_ to touch, really, if they intended to interact. He didn't suffer the contact with any particular gladness, but it was tolerable, if only to have an alternative to the Death Eaters.

"I smell blood," he said, wondering if he dared reach out and ascertain where she might be injured.

"Blood?" she said confusedly. Then, suddenly, she pulled away from him. He could feel the sudden cold left by her removal. "It's--no, I'm not injured." She sounded embarrassed.

It took Severus a moment to realize what she must mean, and he felt his face grow rather hot. He'd made an intense effort to forget that his students were women with fully functioning parts. "I assume you mean that you--are you experiencing any discomfort? I regret that I am unable to brew you a pain potion if that is the case, but current circumstances being as they are..." he trailed off. There was no point in saying anything. It was an awkward situation, and would simply have to be endured. Babbling wouldn't help.

"Thank you," she said, sounding more embarrassed than ever. "I'm feeling well, actually, all things considered."

She subsided into a blessed silence then, and Severus stood up and shuffled away, feeling his way across the room with his feet. He ate his crust of bread meditatively until a sudden thought struck him.

"May I ask," he said into the darkness, "if you are fairly ... predictable?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"It occurs to me that such a thing provides a useful marker of time, if it is regular enough."

"Yes, I thought of that."

Of course she had. He rolled his eyes and stretched his legs out across the floor, crossing his arms. "I was mistaken, then. It has been less than a month since your ... arrival."

"Just under three weeks, I would say," she said.

"Time, as I already made clear, is difficult to judge here."

"Yes."

Suddenly there didn't seem to be anything appropriate to say. "It is useful information, while it lasts."

"While it lasts?"

"Eventually, malnourishment--"

"Would be useful, in fact," she said testily. "I haven't exactly got anything on me for--for keeping things tidy."

Had he been able to see her, he would have stared blankly while he tried to come up with an adequate response to a problem he had never even come close to encountering before.

"There is--I have an undershirt. Torn into rags, would it do, for the moment?"

"Yes, thank you."

He took his shirt off and then removed the undershirt, biting into the fabric to start a hole and then tearing it into strips. He would have preferred to preserve his clothing for the cold weather that he knew was swiftly approaching, but he was not about to spend an indefinite number of days with a menstruating female who had no means of dealing with the requisite mess.

He passed her the rags, and tried not to listen to the sound of rustling fabric as she attended to herself. Instead, he thought about potions. Certain blood potions used only menstrual blood, and he felt an unexpected moment of regret that there was no way to collect and save it.

After that, he took to giving her a larger portion of bread, although he didn't tell her so. It wasn't much, but as long as she kept enough weight on to continue menstruating, they could at least have some gauge of how long they had languished there. That was worth a little added privation, in his mind.

0 0 0

Another month passed.

At some point, they began sleeping side by side. The constant sameness of everything made it easy to forget exactly when or how it began. She simply knew that it had at some point, and that it had continued on since then. It was partly a matter of convenience. The year was moving on, and it was beginning to get cold. Hermione guessed that it was nearly October by now.

The house wasn't well-heated, if it was heated at all, and lying on the wood floor, although they were well-enough accustomed to it to sleep with relative ease, left them both chilled.

There was also the fact that she felt safer when he was close by. When she slept, she was most vulnerable, and she drew a sense of security from his presence at her back, warm and steady.

Had she retained the thought of him as her teacher, as her onetime nemesis, she would never have been able to do it, but that was someone else. This Snape was just a man. Sometimes, she let herself imagine that he was Ron--a Ron with a different voice, and a different scent, and a totally different mode of expression, but Ron nonetheless. Sometimes he was simply nobody, a disembodied voice with a conveniently familiar name to call him by.

It was better to return from torture, whether physical or psychological, and have a companion there, waiting for her.

She was the one waiting for him on the day when things changed.

"They gave us food," he said, as soon as they were alone. "Meat." The word sounded almost alien on his lips, the scent that rose from his hand at once familiar and strange.

"Meat?"

"Not much, but it smells edible."

"What happened?"

"Someone slipped it into my pocket. I did not recognize his mask, and he was hooded--nor did he speak."

She crawled to where he was. "Are we going to eat it?" She could hear the hunger evident in her voice, and her stomach growled.

They ate, and neither of them were ill. After that, they had it every third or fourth visit. It was always delivered by the same Death Eater, always masked and hooded in the same manner. He was rarely there at the same time as Lestrange, and, though he never spoke, Snape indicated that their anonymous benefactor--if benefactor he was--held a position of power. Given his former position as Voldemort's right hand, Hermione had little trouble believing that he knew what he was talking about.

The Death Eater never spoke, it was true, but he did participate in their torture. He did this with nonverbal magic, aiming small, uncomfortable hexes and curses in their direction at random intervals. Once or twice, he went so far as to kick one of them while they lay on the floor and panted for their breath between blows.

Neither of them dared risk speaking to the Death Eater in front of the others, and he was never there alone, so they simply accepted the gifts. Occasionally, there was a piece of fruit, and once a small half-bar of chocolate. Sometimes there was cheese. Either the food was poisoned and would kill them, or it wouldn't. There didn't seem to be much reason not to eat them, in either case. It was simply another thing to bear, wavering constantly between near-starvation and the fear of poisoning, whether deadly or merely painful.

0 0 0

Severus, though he didn't know and didn't ask about Hermione's thoughts, had mirrored them almost completely. It was easy to call her by her name, because Hermione and Miss Granger were separate entities. It was easy to sleep beside her for the same reason, and easy to both offer comfort and to seek comfort in her arms.

It had been she who had first approached him one night (if by night, one simply meant the time when they were sleeping), her teeth chattering. She hadn't said a word, but merely curled up at his side, her back pressed against his chest, her body trembling with cold. Had he not been freezing as well, he would have repulsed her, but the warmth was a blessing in what he had privately begun to consider the long, dark night of his soul. This was hell, this emptiness. Regardless of what his students thought, even Severus Snape desired to be around other human beings periodically.

They sought each other out to sleep, now. Sometimes she came to sleep beside him even though he remained wakeful, and at those times he would hold her in his arms too, listening to the even sounds of her breathing and letting his mind wander. In the blackness, she might be anyone. She might be Lily, or perhaps some other woman he had not yet known. She might not even be a woman at all, but some asexual creature come to keep him from dying of the cold and loneliness.

In the times when they took her away, he learned to appreciate the difference that she made. Her voice formed the shape of the days and nights, divided now only by the times when she was awake or asleep, and by the occasional light under the door when their captors arrived to look in on them.

He would never have considered that he cared for her as something other than a fellow sufferer. In some part of his mind, he still suspected sometimes that she was imaginary and that he had gone somewhat mad. Even if she didn't exist, however, it was good to have her there.

Another month went by. Judging by how much weight Hermione had lost, Severus guessed that it would be the last they would be able to mark for sure. She had stopped crying by then, and his memory of her tears was fading, as did the memory of everything else. Living in the dark made it easy to forget things.

One day, they kept her for a very, very long time.

When she returned, it was in silence. He waited a long time for her to speak. Time had made him accustomed to talking, even if their conversation was nearly always inane. They had begun to take stock of their injuries after each torture session, and he found himself anxious to know that she was all right.

When he heard the Death Eaters leaving and felt the faint signature of the last wards being raised again, he said, "Hermione?"

"I'm here."

"Obviously," he said, somewhat annoyed, "or I would not have spoken to you."

"What do you want?"

He paused, surprised. It was rare that she was unwilling to talk. "I merely wished to ascertain that you have not been ... too badly damaged."

"I'm fine."

He scratched his chin, where a thick beard had grown, and frowned. "Fine?"

"It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, I mean. And I--I just am tired of talking about things. It doesn't matter if we talk or not. None of it matters, does it? We're never going to get out."

"What has happened?"

She didn't speak. Instead, he heard her breathing hitch. She made almost no noise, but he knew that she was crying, and he went to her immediately. He had long since ceased considering what might or might not be appropriate. In spite of the fact that the blinding shroud they lived under kept them from seeing, there was no privacy between them. It was impossible to be much reserved with anybody who was there every time you snored or blew your nose or vomited or relieved yourself. He sat beside her and felt for her hand, lacing his fingers with hers. He had never done such a thing before, though their hands had touched often enough. It seemed to him now that it might help, and if he let her grow too maudlin, his own despair would only increase.

"Harry's dead," she whispered, when her crying had finally ceased.

"I don't believe it," he said sharply, without thinking. His relationship with Harry Potter was nothing if not complicated, but an odd sort of respect and even distant affection had grown up between them before Severus was taken away.

She began to cry again, loudly this time. He could feel her body shaking with the force of her sobs. Again, he waited in silence until it subsided. What was there to say? Either it was true, or it was not true. It didn't much matter. She was right. They wouldn't escape, and they would surely not be found--not in a warded, unplottable house.

"They showed me." She sniffled, pulling her hand away from his. He heard her sniffle again, presumably wiping her nose.

"What do you mean?"

"A copy of _The Daily Prophet_. The Killing Curse. Three days ago, they said. It had a p-picture." Her voice caught, and he reached for her again, as much to comfort himself as her.

"It is--I am sorry. It is a great loss."

"Point out the bloody obvious, why don't you?"

He pressed his lips together, annoyed.

"There's more," she said softly.

"Tell me."

"There have been other deaths. The--they're winning. Kingsley Shacklebolt is dead and Lucius Malfoy's taken over as Minister of Magic."

His stomach clenched tightly. "Lucius? Minister?"

"Must you call him that?"

He shrugged, leaning his head back against the wall. "Malfoy, then. It doesn't matter. I ought to have worked harder to have him imprisoned."

"It wouldn't have worked." She sounded angry now, and he welcomed the change. Anger was better than sadness in every case. "After the Malfoys deserted Voldemort at Hogwarts, nobody was about to put them in Azkaban. Narcissa Malfoy, Harry's savior." Her voice took on a bitter note.

"I take it you disagree."

"I don't trust them. They stayed out of prison the first time, too, and it meant nothing about their goodness or innocence."

"What makes you so certain that this is all true?"

"I told you, they showed me the newspaper. It's--I have it here."

"They left it with you? I didn't see--"

"It was in my pocket." There was a rustle, and she drew it out and passed it to him. He could feel the very slight unevenness of the paper where the words were printed, and caught the faint scent of ink.

"I cannot read it in the dark."

"They gave me a candle and a match, too. They wanted you to see it. They said I ought to be the one to tell you. I don't know why."

"You did not ask?"

"They didn't answer."

He held his breath for a moment, and then let it out very slowly. "But they gave us a candle?"

"And food. But only one match. We won't be able to use it more than once. I--I wasn't sure if we ought to use it just so you can read the paper. We might need it later." He felt her move, and felt the pressure of her side against him as she crept closer. "I thought that--it seemed impossible that we could lose, once Voldemort was dead," she whispered.

"I confess, I did not anticipate this ... if it is true."

"They never meant to use me to bargain with Harry, did they?"

"I very much doubt it." He carefully lifted his arm and placed it on her shoulders, more for his own physical comfort than anything else. It was awkward to have his arm pinned to his side by her head.

"Are they going to kill us?"

"Eventually."

She went very still. "I don't want to die."

"You may find it very different than you fear."

"I don't care. I don't want to die. I want to go home." She sniffed loudly and began to cry once more.

"Hermione," he said, feeling helpless. At a loss, he put his other arm around her again and drew her into his lap, where she so often slept during his wakeful hours. She twisted around and pressed her face into his chest, crying all the while. This was something new, and wholly unexpected. Unsure of what to do, he held her, one hand creeping up to uncertainly stroke her tangled, matted hair. She cried for a long time, so long that it surprised him to find that she was still capable of doing it. His neck began to ache, and he turned his head back and forth to stretch it.

Eventually, she quieted, but she made no move to remove herself from his arms. He wondered if she was asleep. That, at least, he understood how to deal with. Always before when she'd cried, she'd taken herself as far away from him as she could go. They kept their mourning separate from each other. It was safer that way. It was easier.

He let his head sink forward until his nose and lips came to rest in her hair. It smelled of dust and oil, but the scent was less unpleasant to him than he might have found it in other circumstances. He had long since grown used to the smell of an unwashed human body.

"Thank you," she whispered hoarsely. She was awake, then.

He didn't answer. What answer was there to make? Instead, he tightened his grip on her for a fraction of a second, hoping it was in some way reassuring. She didn't respond, except to rub her face against his shoulder, drying her tears on his shirt. He kept his face in her hair, feeling oddly comfortable. If the Order was failing, if everything was lost, at least he would not suffer the end alone. She shifted a little and placed her hand on his chest, just beside her own head. He covered it with his own hand, thinking again how strange it was to be like this with her, this invisible, faceless woman. And she _was_ a woman. It hadn't really occurred to him before that she was, and he wasn't sure now exactly why that was. On a sudden, wild impulse, he kissed the top of her head.

She stopped breathing, and he felt her tense up. He closed his eyes and removed his head from hers, cursing himself for a fool.

"What did you do that for?"

He shrugged. "It was ... an impulse. I did not think. I apologize."

"I just--I wasn't expecting it," she said, almost regretfully.

He laughed hollowly. "It shan't happen again."

"Oh." She sounded ... disappointed? His heartbeat quickened just slightly.

"I--we are in a difficult situation."

"Well spotted." She snorted, shifting again. Still, though, she remained where she was, and made no attempt to push his arms away or remove her hand from beneath his.

"I do not wish to make it more so."

"I understand. Only ... your head was warm, that's all."

"If you are cold..." he said, tightening his arms around her again and letting his head rest atop hers once more.

"I wonder," she said, her voice very soft, "could I call you by your actual name? It seems silly not to use it, if we're going to be here forever."

"My actual name?" he repeated, puzzled.

"Severus, I mean."

"I ... assumed you didn't wish to use it."

"You never said I could."

"You have never asked before."

"Severus," she said again, as if to accustom herself to saying it. It sounded strange in her voice, and strangely appealing. "It's ... I've never known anybody with that name before."

"You have known me."

Her fingers twitched slightly beneath his hand. "No, I haven't. Not before this."

By 'this', he assumed that she meant their imprisonment. He didn't answer. He had not known a woman called Hermione before, either. All the better for him to be Severus, then. The more that she could divorce her mind from the past, the easier things would be for her, and so the better they would be for him. If they could forget what they left behind, perhaps it would be a little less difficult to face what lay ahead.

She turned her hand around and intertwined her fingers with his, squeezing softly. "I'm glad I'm not alone."

"As am I." His voice was muffled strangely by her hair. He kissed her head again, more in thanks than from impulse this time.

In response, she drew his hand to her lips and left it there. He felt her breath moving back and forth across his knuckles, and he shivered. "Hermione," he said, but there was nothing with which he could follow it. Suddenly, he released her hand and tilted her chin upwards towards him. Bending forward, he brushed his nose over her face, feeling for her lips. When he found them, he kissed them hard. Ah, God, she was a woman, and, though her lips were dry and cracked, they were yielding and womanly. He could taste her, smell her. Her breath was sour, but no more so than his own, and he welcomed the unique flavor of a mouth that was not his.

She kissed him back, a little uncertainly. He fumbled in the darkness, cradling the back of her head with his hand, and her body with his arms. Slowly, his own desperation dawned on him. He doubted he could have lived much longer without it, this affirmation that something real and passionate could still exist in the world, no matter how loveless it might be.

He stopped himself just before the point at which he knew he would be unable to let go of her. "Hermione?"

"It's all right," she whispered. "It's all right. It is. It's all right."

He wasn't sure which one of them she was really attempting to reassure, but he took her at her word. He laid her on the floor gently, did his best to force himself to be gentle in everything he did, although he doubted that he succeeded entirely. He longed for her most unexpectedly, needed her in a way that shocked him to discover. And, knowing that they had a day of solitude before their next interrogation, he didn't hesitate again.

Nor was she unresponsive. She guided his hands when they went astray, and made occasional whispers of encouragement or nearly inaudible sounds of pleasure. It wasn't much, but it was enough.

They left most of their clothes on. Even if they hadn't been freezing, it was too dangerous to disrobe completely. He had no wish to be discovered like this, with his body fusing itself to hers. He retained the presence of mind to be thankful that she'd been wearing robes when they took her. Robes were easy enough to push out of the way. He was not foolish enough to expect the Death Eaters to always remain away for so long after a visit. Complacency was a deadly thing.

She was largely inexperienced, and he was out of practice, but it was satisfying enough nevertheless. He felt different when it was over, as he lay on the floor, sweat chilling on his skin, his head cushioned on her chest. They didn't speak of it, then or later. It was as if it had never happened.

A few days afterwards (by his best estimation) it was her turn to be tortured again. He went to the door and took advantage of the light that came in underneath it to read the newspaper. Sure enough, it read as she'd reported. He felt suddenly sick, and went to the corner where they slept, lying down in silence, refusing even to think. He had resisted believing it until he had a chance to actually see the paper. Now, in spite of himself, he found it hard to come up with a way to argue that it wasn't true.

She came back quickly this time. As soon as the door closed, he heard her footsteps on the floor, and felt her arms as she knelt down and made her way towards him. When she found him, she didn't speak. Instead, she stretched herself out beside him in silence, and he felt one of her tiny hands moving over his robes. When it crept downward, he took it in his own and stopped her. She snatched her hand away immediately.

"I'm sorry," she said.

He searched for her hand and took it back into his. "Wait until they leave."

0 0 0

Hopelessness made it easy. It was a comfort, a way to release some fraction of the despair that always threatened to overwhelm her. It was easy to justify, and an easy habit to fall into. She woke up frequently to find his lips on her, and she never refused him, nor did he ever refuse her. Occasionally, she felt a stab of guilt when he was moving over her, a persistent belief that she was being unforgivably unfaithful to Ron.

But she loved Ron, and she didn't love Severus--nor did Severus love her. This was nothing, merely a coping mechanism, a way to survive. It kept them warm. She began to believe that it kept her alive. It was a last shield against the temptation to give up and die. She'd grown so skinny that neither of them felt much need for caution, and they gave themselves up to each other completely.

They were interrupted only once by the arrival of Death Eaters. Hermione thanked whatever gods there might be that Severus had such good hearing, and that they both had retained quick reflexes. They took Severus, and left Hermione on the floor, pretending to sleep and trying to fight her frustration and sudden loneliness.

"Hermione," he said, as soon as they'd heard the Death Eaters leave, "bring me the candle."

She sat up immediately. "What's happened?"

"I shall show you."

She produced the candle and match from the tiny pile of rags on which they slept and brought them to him. He lit the candle and, in its small, sputtering light, produced a small piece of paper and showed it to her.

"What's this?" she whispered, staring at the paper and doing her best to avoid looking at his face. She'd found that she didn't wish to see him. It was easier for her to simply forget what he looked like and avoid the occasional reminders that he was, in fact, someone she had known before her descent into hell.

"I do not know yet," he murmured, turning it over. His hand trembled slightly, something she'd never noticed when touching it.

There was writing on the paper, and she squinted at it, trying to read in the faint light.

"Next time, I will come alone. Be prepared to Disapparate to this location. Five-minute window," he read. There was a small but detailed map sketched below the text, and they both studied it.

She took the note from him and looked at it. "Can you Apparate based on a map?"

"It is possible, yes."

"I know it's possible. I meant, can_ you_ do it?"

"I can."

"And of course, with Apparating, not having wands won't make a difference."

He snorted. "You have an unfortunate habit of presenting common sense as if it represented unusual knowledge."

She didn't answer. They sat just outside the wavering circle of light cast by the candle, watching in silence as it burned.

"Who is it, helping us?"

"I do not know." He sighed. "Hermione, it is possible that we are being set up--encouraged to escape, only to be killed in the process."

She watched the flickering flame. "So?"

"I merely wished to be sure that you understood."

"We're still going to try, aren't we?"

"I will."

"So, we are."

"Yes."

She hugged her knees to her chest. "Do you think you're strong enough to do it?"

"Are you?"

"I don't know."

The candle began to sputter, and she watched it regretfully as it began to go out. "Is there a way to practice?"

"No. I attempted it when I first arrived. The wards do not permit it."

The candle went out, leaving them in the dark. He reached out and drew her into his arms, kissing her. Without a word, she acquiesced to his unspoken desire, allowing him to coax her body back to where it had been before they were separated. They went slowly, carefully, and Hermione felt a poignant sense that she was saying farewell. She fell asleep in his arms, knowing that it was the last time they would do such a thing. When they returned to the daylight world, if they returned, she would belong to Ron again, wholly and devotedly. As she slipped out of consciousness, she let herself indulge and luxuriate in thoughts of Ron for the first time in weeks. Her last thought before she slept was of Ron, her last sensation that of Severus's chest rising and falling beneath her cheek.

* * *

**Author's Notes**: Ok, I know, of course, that this is being posted on a Monday. It was done on Sunday and I was all set to go, but my beta (who rocks in every imaginable way) hit some really bad weather and had to take her computer offline for a number of hours. There just wasn't time to get it all done before Sunday was over. However, it's still early on Monday morning here, so at least it's close. 


	4. Chapter 4

DISCLAIMER: All characters seen here are the exclusive property of JK Rowling. She's the genius, I'm the fangirl who can't resist playing with her creations.

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**Chapter 4 **

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"_I need not say that my task does not end there. It would be comparatively easy if it did. There is much more before me._"  
-Oscar Wilde, _De Profundis_

When Hermione awoke, Severus was gone.

She had a momentary panic, until she realized that she could still hear him nearby, breathing. He wasn't gone, then, but had merely moved away from her while she slept.

That surprised her. Never before had she gone to sleep in his arms and waked to find herself alone. Even if he was awake, he'd always made a point of remaining with her until she moved away. She hadn't spent much time analyzing the reasons for this, but was vaguely aware that it had something to do with her horror of being alone, and his knowledge of it. She considered it as the single kindest thing he'd done since her capture and the beginning of their incarceration together.

She put her hand out, reaching for him, but he was out of arm's reach. Inching in the direction of his breathing, she finally reached him and listened. He was snoring very softly. She frowned. He'd let her go to sleep and moved away in order to sleep by himself. He'd left her on purpose.

The same strangely bittersweet sense of finality that she'd felt before going to sleep returned to her full-force. It really had been the last time. Soon enough (although neither of them, of course, could be sure_ how_ soon), the mysterious Death Eater would return, presumably alone, and they would attempt to make their escape. Of course they had to change things again. Hermione wasn't a fool, and neither was Severus. They both knew that they would either reach the outside world again, or they would die in the attempt; and, if they didn't die, their liaison had to be over. She loved Ron, dead or alive--and Severus certainly didn't love her. The very idea was unthinkable.

In spite of the thoughts of Ron she'd allowed herself last night, Hermione hadn't forgotten what the Death Eaters told her. Months in the darkness made it easy to believe terrible things, and she'd done her best to give up on convincing herself that he was still alive. It was easier, less painful in a way, to assume that he really was dead. At least if she assumed the worst, there was the potential for happy surprises. She had learned to maintain a strange balance between hope and cynicism.

In the end, it didn't even really matter if Ron was dead or alive. Even if he was gone, the Weasleys would still take her in. There were always her parents, too, of course, but as much as she loved them, she'd rather stay within the Wizarding world--at least until the war was resolved, one way or another. So, she would live with the Weasleys, and continue to fight the war--what was left of it to be fought. It seemed like a losing battle now, but she was a Gryffindor. She wouldn't walk away just because things were going badly for her side.

She wondered how many of them were still alive. If Harry was dead, it was suddenly easy to fear that everyone else was dead as well. Somehow, the possibility of Harry's death now changed something. After Voldemort's death, they'd all come to think of Harry as being somehow safer, if not invincible.

She listened to Severus's snores, thinking of the map that she'd tried to memorize in the few short moments while they'd had some light. She wondered if she would be able to Apparate. She wondered if _he'd_ be able to Apparate. She'd begun to suspect that he was eating even less than she, and he had grown pathetically thin, a bony caricature even of the skinny man he'd always been.

The snoring stopped.

"Hermione?"

"I'm here," she said, somewhat relieved to be pulled from her thoughts.

"I am glad you are awake."

For a moment, she thought he merely meant he was happy for her company, and she opened her mouth to respond in kind. Pleasantries of this sort were rare between them--imprisonment didn't make him much more inclined to truly vapid small talk--but he continued before she could get the words out.

"There are things we must discuss before our purported benefactor returns." He coughed briefly; she heard him swipe his hand across his mouth, and caught a faint whiff of his sour breath. "If it is indeed the case that Malfoy has been appointed Minister and that Potter is dead, we may find it difficult to return to Hogwarts." He paused. "I assume that you _do_ wish to return to Hogwarts?"

"Well, yes," said Hermione, somewhat surprised. "Where else would I go? Well, I'd thought of The Burrow first, but Hogwarts also."

"Your long-term plans are of no consequence to me, per se, beyond the knowledge that you do eventually wish to return to our world. What is of consequence, however, is the fact that we will be entirely dependent on the goodwill of a man we know to be a Death Eater, and who I very much doubt intends to offer us aid once we have escaped the confines of this building. To do so would certainly not be in his best interests, and we have nothing to offer him in return, at the moment."

Hermione prodded with her tongue at a tooth that was hurting. She must have a cavity. She frowned. In all of her life before, she'd never had a cavity. She prodded again, and the pain grew sharper. "What are you saying?"

"I believe we must plan for the eventuality that we will, at least for a time, be obliged to live as Muggles. Neither of us are possessed of our wands. Mine, I know, was destroyed. Yours most likely was subjected to the same fate."

She stopped tonguing the sore spot for a moment. "How do you know it was destroyed?"

"They incinerated it before my eyes."

"Oh." There didn't seem to be an adequate response for that. The thought of her wand being incinerated made her feel rather sick. A second wand gone. She sighed. "I should have known, I guess."

"You are intelligent enough to realize, I think, that an immediate return to the magical world, weak and unarmed as we are, would be so foolhardy as to be suicidal. I need hardly add that we will have no useful information, no idea whether Malfoy has begun using Snatchers again, or what methods they might employ to locate us. All we do know is that if we mingle with magical beings, we will make ourselves vulnerable."

She slipped one finger into her mouth, rubbing the edge of her tooth with her fingertip. She could feel the rough spot where it was decalcifying. "You're right, of course," she said, wiping her finger dry on the torn and dirt-crusted edge of her sleeve. "We'll--we'll be able to go back eventually, won't we?"

"It is possible that there will be nothing to go back to."

"Surely the Order will eventually--"

"Not necessarily. However, I am thinking merely of the short term. A few months will be necessary, at a minimum, before you will be physically strong enough to risk returning to Wizarding London or even Hogwarts, if things have once again become as ... hostile ... as they were before the fall of the Dark Lord."

"You'll need to get your strength back too," she said, rather stung by being singled out.

"Yes," he said simply. "A simple Apparition will be difficult enough. To do more, without proper recovery beforehand, and without magical aid, is unwise."

"You think Hogwarts won't be safe either, then?"

She heard him scratch his beard. "I doubt very much that it will be, if Death Eaters have regained control of the Ministry. In the months before the fall of the Dark Lord, Hogwarts was the last place I would advise an escaped prisoner of war to go."

"What about The Burrow, or Grimmauld Place?"

"I would sooner risk those, but to travel to Ottery St. Catchpole or to London will still require a certain amount of prior planning, especially if we face the prospect of protecting ourselves without wands. We simply do not know, and have no way to know, what places will be safe anymore, and I refuse to go marching into unknown and quite probably deadly situations without preparation."

"We could--" Hermione hesitated, biting her lip uncertainly. "We could stay with my parents." She'd kept so much hidden from them over the years, and they'd only just got back from Australia a few months ago--that argument was still ringing in her ears. Trying to explain to them why she and one of her ex professors were in hiding from Death Eaters and couldn't use magic without risking their lives didn't strike her as something she really wanted to do.

On the other hand, they were out of other options.

"Brilliant," he said dryly, "we shall go and stay with your parents. Malfoy will never think of looking for us there."

"Even if he thought of it, he wouldn't be able to find them. The house is secret-kept, and I'm the Secret-Keeper. I--they went to live in Australia for a while after I left school. They changed their names, and they kept the new names when they came back to Britain. Malfoy might know about two dentists called Doctor Granger, but not two dentists called Doctor Wilkins."

"Your parents are_ dentists_?"

"Surely you know that," said Hermione disbelievingly.

"I did not. Such details are the purview of the Head of House."

They both paused, made a little uncomfortable by the reminder that Severus and Hermione had once been Professor Snape and Miss Granger.

"They live in Abingdon," said Hermione, to break the silence. "I grew up in Kent, but when they came back, they said they'd prefer to start afresh somewhere, and Mum went to Oxford, you see."

"I see," he said. She could hear the way that his frown changed his voice. "Do you have a secure way to contact them once we are ... outside?"

"Well, I doubt Malfoy's going to be listening to the telephones, is he?"

"Malfoy might be a pureblood, but he is not entirely out of touch, and there are Ministry employees whose sole purpose is to do things like listening to telephones."

"Only the house is secret-kept and they've changed their names."

"I presume that they, too, are Secret-Keepers."

"Of course. It would make entertaining and things rather inconvenient if they could never tell anyone how to find the house. Although, they don't entertain much. They're--they're rather like me, you see. Not many friends." She winced as soon as she'd said it. Severus didn't need or want to know these details.

"Very well," he said, ignoring her disclosure. "Given the lack of a better plan, we shall make immediately for a telephone-box, and thence to Oxfordshire." He paused. She heard a faint clicking sound as he prised unseen dirt from beneath his fingernails. "I presume," he said softly, "that you are on sufficiently good terms with your parents to be quite sure that they will ... take us in."

"Of course I am," she said, surprised at the idea that she might not be. "They weren't terribly happy with me when they found I'd--well, I didn't really let them know how dangerous things were. But I'm their daughter, after all."

"Quite," he said.

The atmosphere around them suddenly felt rather chilled, and Hermione wondered if she hadn't been rather tactless without realizing it. She knew next to nothing about the history of the man who sat beside her. In her mind, he was merely Severus; and when she thought about Snape, she was no more enlightened. Her former professor and she had never been close. Harry knew some things about him, but he'd been quite close-mouthed about it. She sighed, wondering how to apologize without making things worse.

She never had the opportunity to try.

They both held their breath. A voice was speaking, lowering the wards. Hermione felt the subtle change in the magic energy around them as the wards fell. Beside her, she heard Severus stand, and then felt his hand as he felt for her and helped her get to her feet.

Her throat began to burn, and she realized that she was still holding her breath. She exhaled.

The door opened, but there was no daylight to flood the room this time. Instead, the Death Eater stood there, holding a single candle. His hood fell low over his face and in his long black robes, he reminded Hermione of the Grim Reaper. She drew closer to Snape, doing everything she could to keep herself from viewing that mental image as a portent.

"Quickly," said the Death Eater, raising his head. His mask was off, Hermione realized, and she started.

Draco Malfoy.

If Snape was surprised, it didn't show outwardly. He simply gripped her arm and dragged her forward.

"Uncle Severus," said Draco, sounding urgent now and pressing a package into Severus's hands. "Here's some food. I couldn't get a wand for you, I'm sorry. There are some blankets in there too." His eyes moved briefly to Hermione's face, but he didn't address her. "You'll need to hide out. Everybody's going to look for you. You saw the map?"

"Draco," said Severus, narrowing his eyes. "Is it true that Potter is dead and your father appointed Minister?"

But Draco had pulled a watch from his pocket, and he blanched. "You need to go. Now. They'll be here any second."

Severus had not relinquished his hold on Hermione's arm. It grew tighter now, and he yanked her body to his own. "Hermione," he said, his voice harsh and urgent, "we do not have the strength to do this individually. You remember the map?"

She nodded.

"Good. If we combine our power, we should be able to--"

"Combine it how?"

He made an impatient noise. "Like Side-Along-Apparition, except that we shall carry each other mutually instead of one bearing the load for both. It is more technically difficult, because it must be done in unison, but it requires less energy."

"You need to go," said Draco sharply. "They're coming."

"Your father, is he--" said Severus quickly.

Draco had covered his face with the hood once more, and was fastening on his mask. "He'll be looking for you," he said, before Severus could finish the question. "You'll need to hide."

"I am going to count to three, Hermione," said Severus, wrapping his arm around her waist. "On three, Disapparate. Draco, you have our gratitude. One, two, three._Now_."

Hermione had half-expected him to roar that last word, so intense was her emotion. Instead, he'd whispered it and, moving as one, they both turned in place. Hermione slid her arm around his waist, focused intently on their destination, and watched as the walls that had confined them for so long disappeared.

It seemed to take forever. Matter condensed around them until she was sure she would suffocate or burst from the pressure. She could feel Severus holding her, and his body pressed into hers until her bones began to ache.

0 0 0

When his feet touched the ground again, Severus's muscles gave out. He let go of Hermione and collapsed. Beside him, she stumbled and fell, landing with a squelch in the mud.

So they were somewhere muddy. That was something. Wherever it was, though, it was also cold, bitter cold. There were shards of ice in the mud, rain was falling hard, and a bone-numbing wind howled above their heads. His teeth had already begun to chatter.

It was dark, late at night. Still, the outdoor darkness was not so profound as that of their prison, and he could make her out dimly. He made an effort to lift his head, but he couldn't do it. Apparition had taxed him even more than he'd expected. Judging by Hermione's pathetic attempts to rise, she, too, had lost nearly all of her strength.

"Don't," he said, clenching his jaw to stop the chattering of his teeth, which was so violent as to be almost painful. "Rest. Here." He managed a feeble gesture at the package Draco had given them. There were blankets in there. Blankets, and food. A short rest to regain enough strength to crawl, if not to walk, and then they would press on.

She was less than a foot away, and the package lay between them. It took her nearly a minute to get it untied--judging by the whispered profanity that he thought he heard, her hands must be shaking from cold and weakness nearly as badly as his were--and then she got it open. He could just barely see her as she dug through its contents.

"Blanket," he said, his face aching.

"We need shelter, Severus."

"We need rest."

"No," she said. "Not here. It's not safe. Open your mouth and have some bread. I'm going to--I'm going to go look for shelter."

The bread that she placed in his mouth was soft and fresh and sweet. He could have wept over it. Instead, he chewed and swallowed far more quickly than he would have liked. "No," he said, crumbs still sticking between his teeth and cheeks. "Not by yourself. It isn't safe."

"Can you move?" Her voice was skeptical, and he didn't blame her.

He tried to sit up again, and managed, this time, to get himself up onto his elbows before exhaustion forced him to halt. "I don't suppose," he said dryly--as dryly as he could through chattering teeth and above the whistling wind--"that my benighted godson happened to endow us with his Hand of Glory."

"What a disgusting idea," she said, in a voice so prim that she might have been Minerva McGonagall herself. "And you're going to have to do better than sitting up. We're going to freeze if we stay here, Severus."

"Not an entirely unpleasant prospect." He wished he had the energy to sneer. She was a woman on a mission now, and in that role he suddenly found her utterly insufferable. "At least if I froze to death, I'd get a few minutes to rest."

"That isn't funny. If you can't walk, rest all you like and I'll go find someplace for us to spend the night."

In the end, he managed (with her help) to get to his feet. The bread had refreshed him, and, when he was wrapped in one of the blankets Draco had given them, he was able to slip and stumble through the mud with her and keep his legs from giving out. The blanket had been placed under an Impervius Charm, keeping Severus protected from the rain and wind and, as a result, rather warmer. It seemed that it was later even than Severus had thought--so late that the light of dawn was beginning to turn the horizon gray by the time they located a place to rest, in a gap beneath a very thick and long-neglected hedgerow.

Severus crept in first. In spite of his emaciated condition--and, now that he had leisure to look at himself, he was even more wasted than he'd realized--and although he was not a particularly tall man, it was still a close fit, and he was forced to fold his body in on itself to get in. Once he was settled and comfortable, there was just enough room for Hermione to fit herself in beside him. He was forced to put his arm around her, and she could only fit by nestling her head up into the crook of his chin.

Still, the hedge was thick enough to keep out the rain and most of the wind, and when they had carefully bent some of the branches and covered themselves up with one of Draco's blankets, they would not immediately be seen, caked in mud as they and all they possessed now were.

Their clothes were sodden and Hermione had so much mud in her hair that when it dried, it would easily serve her as a helmet, but they were both too tired to care. Severus told himself that he ought to stay and keep watch, but as the warmth from Hermione's body and from Draco's blanket began finally to seep into his body, he was unable to stay awake any longer. Holding Hermione close and breathing the air of freedom, he fell asleep.

0 0 0

Hermione's first impression on waking up was that a Hawthorn hedge was not at all a comfortable place to sleep, and she didn't see what on earth could possibly attract fairies to it so. Her next thought was that there was daylight filtering in through the branches, and that she was cold. Severus was snoring softly; the only other sound she could hear was dripping water. Her entire body was stiff and sore. She was more than used to sleeping in uncomfortable positions, and so she had to presume it had more to do with the damp and with the exertion it had taken to Apparate.

Very carefully, she extricated herself from Severus and crawled out from beneath the hedge. The sun was shining weakly through a break in the clouds, and the air smelled fresh and wet and cold. It was gorgeous, although the light hurt her eyes. Shading them with one hand, she took stock of where they were.

There weren't any landmarks that she recognized, which didn't surprise her. A narrow, sodden road ran alongside the hedgerow. Across the road, she could see the field they'd appeared in the night before. It was nothing but an expanse of dirt--mud, really. There wasn't any sign of human life, aside from Hermione herself.

She looked down, and winced. Her clothes were caked with mud, and below that she was sure that there was just more dirt. Her fingernails were cracked and filthy, and she was quite thin. The bones in her wrists jutted out sharply. She'd never really looked at herself during her imprisonment more than she could help, in spite of the hours sitting in silence in that lighted room full of Death Eaters. Her hands looked strangely bony and knobbly. Her fingers, always long in relation to her hands, looked longer than ever, and reminded her a little bit of the spindly, sharp hands of a Bowtruckle.

A rustling in the hedge behind her made her spin around, feeling immediately for her wand in her sleeve. A moment later, Severus emerged from the hedge just as Hermione remembered that her wand was gone.

He looked just as bad as she did. His hair was longer than she'd ever seen it, and he had a thick beard, which was plastered flat with half-dried mud. Above it, she could see his cheekbones, sharp and jutting. His eyes were sunken, and he was almost frighteningly pale. Hermione didn't think she'd ever seen a person whose skin was so devoid of color. His clothes were torn. His lips were cracked and bloody.

Still, she was almost relieved. As long as he looked like this, perhaps he could still be Severus. The longer she could go without thinking about the fact that her companion was really Professor Snape, the better.

He was holding the package Draco had given them. Judging by its size, he'd already folded up the blanket and bundled it back in with the rest.

"Time to eat," he said brusquely, squinting in the dim sunlight.

He fished about in the bundle and pulled out a meat pie. Hermione's mouth flooded with saliva as she looked at it, and she hurried forward. He wiped one grimy hand on his robes, which didn't really clean it off even a little bit, and then dug into the pie, using his fingers to carve out a small serving. This, he put in her hand.

She looked at it, her appetite suddenly lessened.

"Eat it," he said, digging another small helping out for himself and immediately taking a bite. "My hands are no filthier than they have been for months, and you were not unwilling to eat from them before."

"I couldn't see them before."

He snorted and took another bite. "I beg your pardon. You are, of course, correct. They were under an enchantment and did not become dirty until the moment that sunlight touched them."

Hermione blushed, embarrassed. The pie did smell awfully good, although the serving size was tiny.

He appeared to notice the look she gave it, for he raised one of his eyebrows, looking at her as if he thought she was an idiot. "You can eat no more than that without making yourself seriously ill, after the diet we have endured."

"I know that," she said defensively. Holding it cupped in one hand, she brought it to her lips and took a bite. She almost moaned aloud, it was so delicious. She didn't chew at first; she merely held it in her mouth and enjoyed the flavors. Then her stomach growled, and she decided that she could savor it later. She ate the rest in two bites.

0 0 0

It was slow going, at first. Neither of them had the least idea where they were, or where the nearest village or town might be. Still, either direction would get them somewhere eventually, so they set off going South in the cold sunlight.

They were exhausted and weak, and had to stop and take many rests. Neither of them particularly liked to be walking down an open road without any sort of concealment, and by unspoken agreement, they stayed in the shade of the hedgerow, off the side of the road itself.

It was during one of their frequent rests that the car went by. It was rather large, particularly for that road, and slowed to a halt when its driver saw them. The window rolled down, and a man stuck his head out, squinting at them curiously.

"Lost?" He was American. Severus stifled a groan. He loathed Americans. Always asking obvious questions and talking too loud. Gryffindors, the lot of them.

"Yes," he said, as sarcastically as he could.

"You look bloody awful," said the American.

Severus shuddered. It wasn't just a regular American, bad as that would have been. It was an American who fancied himself as having gone native.

"We got caught in the storm," ventured Hermione, offering a weak smile.

"That was pretty obvious," said the American. "No car?"

Severus looked at Hermione, who was attempting to swipe some of the mud off her face, and only succeeding in smearing it even more than it already was. "We're backpackers," she said brightly. "No car."

"Right," said the American. "Never thought much of backpacking, myself."

"You couldn't tell us where the next village is, could you? Our--our map got rather wet, you see, and the ink ran."

The American pointed in the direction he'd been driving. "Up this way about twenty minutes' drive," he said. "Need a ride?"

"That would be most helpful," said Severus smoothly, taking Hermione's hand and pulling her toward the car. One thing he could say for Americans was that their absolute inability to keep themselves from poking into one's private affairs did occasionally prove useful.

It took closer to thirty minutes to reach the village. The American, a rather stout man with a strong accent and a beard, didn't stop talking the entire time. Severus wasn't entirely sure that the man had even breathed. He certainly had managed to fit his entire life's story into twenty-nine minutes, using the last sixty seconds of the trip to explain to them where the public telephone was, and what time the bus would be in.

Hermione politely declined the use of the American's mobile, smiled at him, and nudged Severus in the ribs until he joined her in a half-hearted wave at the retreating form of the American's car.

"That was horrendous," he muttered, when she let him stop waving.

"It got us here, didn't it?" she said, frowning. "I thought you were a Slytherin. Any means to an end, isn't it? Anyway, I'm going to call my mum and dad. Try and see if you can get us bus ticke--we don't have any money, do we?" She sighed. "Well, I'll just have to ask mum and dad to wire some. Go and see what two tickets to Oxfordshire will be."

He raised his eyebrows. "If you think I intend to leave you alone at any point, you are sadly mistaken."

In the twenty minutes it took them to walk to a public toilet, wash their faces, find the bus station, ascertain the ticket prices, and walk back, she seemed to become nearly paralyzed with anxiety.

"One-hundred and twenty pounds," she said, without preamble, looking at the telephone box when they returned to it. "I've never asked them for that much all in one go before."

"I imagine they shall understand, if they love you so very much," he said coldly.

She screwed up her face, her nose and forehead wrinkling. "Right," she said. "Now, if you please, I'm going to call my mum and dad, who I haven't spoken to in months, and I'd like a bit of privacy."

"Make your call, then. I shall stand outside, exactly where I am now. I still refuse to leave you alone, and you will be unable to see anything, standing in that thing. I shall keep watch."

She looked like she would protest, but she bit her lip and went into the box. The door stuck and wouldn't close completely. He allowed himself to listen.

He heard her dial the number and reverse the charges. There was a slight pause, during which he carefully scanned the street for suspicious characters. It seemed terribly foolhardy to linger like this in such a public place. They might not be recognized by just any passing wizard, but those who had seen them in their imprisonment...

His hands twitched, and he glanced at Hermione, listening again as he heard her voice.

"Mum?" she said, "it's Hermione. Yes, it really is. I'm--I'm doing all right, mum. How are you?" There was a pause. "That's lovely ... well, yes, I know I haven't called in a while. There's ... yes, mum. I'm trying to tell you. Well, I--I need a hundred and twenty pounds for the train." Another pause, and he saw her rest her head on the glass. "It's for a train ticket. I've got in a bit of trouble ... Well, only it's not just for me, that's why it's so much ... yes, there's someone else. A--a friend. It's an emergency. We've got to hide." She sighed very loudly. "From the--yes, from them, mum." She gave her mother the name of the town and the bank where she could wire the money. "I'll be there soon, mum," she said. "Give my love to dad ... yes ... yes, mum, as soon as I can be. I love you. Thanks."

It took her a full minute to emerge after she'd hung up, and when she did, he politely ignored the tracks of tears on her still somewhat grimy face.

"Well," she said, trying to steady her breathing, "we really ought to see if we can find some fresh clothes. These won't do at all. Anybody other than that daft American who's rude enough to ask is going to want to know why we've been backpacking in robes."

* * *

**Author's Notes**: So much for Sunday. I have good reasons. There have been medical issues going on both for my beta and for myself. Real life come first, I'm afraid, but rest assured, I will keep going, and will definitely keep shooting for regular Sunday updates.

If I do happen to miss a Sunday posting again, you can check for status reports over at zeegrindylows DOT livejournal DOT com


	5. Chapter 5

DISCLAIMER: All characters seen here are the exclusive property of JK Rowling. She's the genius, I'm the fangirl who can't resist playing with her creations.

* * *

**Chapter 5**

* * *

"_Those lovely links with humanity are broken. We are doomed to be solitary_."  
-Oscar Wilde, _De Profundis_

The money arrived promptly, although the banker looked askance at them when they attempted to retrieve it. Severus found himself obliged to perform wandless Legilimency--on a Muggle, no less--in order to convince the man that their nonexistent credentials and identification were, in fact, more than adequate. It was far more difficult than a simple Confundus or even the Imperius Curse, and he felt rather ill by the end of it.

Still, they had the money.

When this was accomplished, they went directly to a small second-hand shop and located some clean Muggle clothes. The proprietress of the shop was an ancient woman, who seemed never to have quite got over her disappointment that post-war fashions had eventually gone out. She looked indignantly appalled every time one of them had the temerity to touch a garment.

They didn't linger long over their selection. As soon as they had overpaid for their clothes and Hermione had made some sort of apologetic comment implying that they'd been the victims of some practical joke, they fled. Severus heard the woman muttering something about gypsies as they went out the door.

"We ought," he said, when they'd got safely away, "to have got some sort of scissors."

"Scissors?" She shot a puzzled look in his direction.

"Your hair is, to put it bluntly, a disgusting rat's next. I expect to see animals come crawling out of it and onto your shoulders at any moment."

She blinked in surprise, and then pulled a face that turned her, in his mind, from a woman back to a rebellious teenager in one fell swoop. "Look in a mirror yourself," she said waspishly, even as one of her hands strayed up to feel her hair.

"I have no need to do so, I am perfectly aware that my state is, most likely, almost as lamentable as yours."

"Well, you're going to need to make yourself presentable before you meet my mum and dad."

"A fact of which I am already aware, Miss Granger." He noted the look of surprise she gave him, but did not analyze his feelings on seeing it. "On that note, I suggest that we locate a place to change our clothes."

0 0 0

That place turned out to be a toilet in a dark and smoky pub. Hermione, when she understood his intention, went immediately through the door, shutting and locking it behind her.

Or, at least, that was the plan.

What happened instead was that Snape stuck his arm in the door and prevented her from closing it.

"What do you think you're doing?" She tightened her grip on the door as he tried to push it open. He was weak, as was she, and neither gained much by the struggle.

"I am joining you, Miss Granger," he said through gritted teeth. "I have already made it clear that we will not part company until we are safely ensconced in your mother and father's home."

"I'm changing my clothes!"

He finally managed to gain enough leverage to push the door open and slip through it. Before she could stop him, he'd closed and locked it. "I will turn my back."

She scowled at him. When this had no effect, she pulled her clothes from the shopping bag and, giving in to an impulse, shut off the lights.

Darkness engulfed them immediately, strangely safe and comforting. Snape said nothing, but she heard the rustle of another bag as he drew out his own set of clothes.

As she changed into her new things, she wondered at the fact that, less than twenty-four hours since their escape, she'd gone almost completely back to feeling like an awkward student in his presence. The dark helped, a little, but she bitterly wished that he had just been willing to let her go in and change alone.

"Are you quite finished?" he asked, when they had both become silent.

"Yes."

He turned the light back on. Hermione blinked, and then squeezed her eyes shut and kept them that way. It wasn't a particularly bright light, but after even a little time back in the dark, it was as painful to see as if she were looking directly into the sun.

"Put these on," he said, pushing something hard into her hand.

She ventured to open one eye and look to see what it was. Sunglasses.

"Where did you get these?"

His eyebrows went up just slightly. "I purchased them with my other clothes. For a pupil as apt as you were at Hogwarts, you are unbelievably unobservant."

She bit her tongue and put them on, trying to ignore the dozen injured retorts that sprang to her mind. She did have to admit, she wished that she'd thought of buying sunglasses. They were a blessed relief.

"You must do something about your hair," he said. Even with the sunglasses hiding his eyes, his look of revulsion was unmistakable.

"How much time have we got before the train goes?"

"Roughly an hour."

She itched her arm, which was irritated by the oversized and rather scratchy jumper that she was now wearing. "What do you propose that I do about it, exactly?"

He shrugged. "Cut it."

She picked up their soiled clothes and shoved them into her shopping bag angrily, then jammed the whole mess into the garbage. "I'll just nip over to the salon then, shall I? Should I try a new color, as well?"

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and she could hear, faintly, the sound of his teeth grinding. "A new color would not go amiss, if we are to be in hiding, but no. Come with me."

He took her by the arm and opened the door. He was too weak to really pull her, but he retained enough strength in his grip to convince her to let him lead her across the pub to the bar.

"Have you got," he said, in a tone far more casual and in an accent far more Northern than she could possibly have imagined coming out of his mouth before, "any scissors?"

The bartender raised his eyebrows. "What for?"

Snape jerked his head towards Hermione. "She's a bloody mess."

"Got that right," said the bartender, wiping his hands on a grimy towel. He tossed the towel on the counter and disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a pair of wet, somewhat rusty scissors.

Snape took them and wiped them on the towel. They left pink streaks, and she could smell the faint, iron-tinged scent of red meat.

They went back to the toilet, where Snape locked the door again.

"You aren't seriously proposing to cut my hair with those, are you?" She stared at the scissors, horrified. They were filthy, and looked blunt.

"I most certainly am. Shut your mouth and sit still."

"You can't!"

"I most certainly can, and I will. Allow me to remind you that we do not have an infinite amount of time in which you can engage in self-indulgent, vanity-driven histrionics. Take it from me, Miss Granger: your hair, as it is right now, is a total loss."

With that, he gathered her matted, filthy hair into a clump in his fist, gave it a slight, experimental tug, and then cut it off with one single chop.

The sound of the scissors, after years and years without a real haircut, brought tears to her eyes, which she had to struggle to hide. The slight thump of her wadded-up mass of hair hitting the outside of the garbage and falling to the floor was worse.

She expected him to leave it at that, but he didn't. He continued to cut, until her hair was short and spiky all over, and not entirely unpleasant to look at (or, it wouldn't have been unpleasant if it hadn't been so awful to look at herself with virtually no hair). She stared at herself in the mirror as Snape began, with greater difficulty, to cut his own hair. The grease and dirt that had made her hair so ugly when it was long served now in place of a styling product, and kept it in straight, stiff spikes. Had she not spent years lamenting its unmanageable bushiness, she wouldn't even have known her hair was curly.

He made short and rather messy work of his own hair, washed his face and hands, and accompanied her back to the bar, where he returned the scissors. The barkeeper accepted them with raised eyebrows, but said nothing. Instead, he turned around and returned them, still covered with tiny bits of brown and black hair, to the kitchen.

"Anything else?" He looked at them with vague interest, apparently trying to gauge exactly how wise it would be to pry into the affairs of a tall, dark, seedy-looking man and his silent and acquiescent female companion.

Snape had removed his sunglasses, ostensibly to polish them, but really (or so Hermione guessed) to stare menacingly at the bartender. Capture had not made him less intimidating, Hermione decided. Instead, it had imbued him with a sort of desperate air. He _looked_ like a man who had just escaped from prison, possibly after serving time for murder. She would have liked to say something, but there was nothing to say; and, she found, she didn't _want_ to have anything to say. It was easier to just be quiet. Being quiet meant she didn't have to think, and after so many months with almost nothing to do _but_ think, it was a relief to merely have to act.

"A coffee, I think," said Snape, when his sunglasses were perfectly clean and were once again perched on his very crooked, very large nose. He glanced at Hermione. "Two coffees."

"I don't drink coffee," said Hermione in a whisper, as the bartender, apparently willing to keep his questions to himself as long as there was money being tossed onto the counter, went to find two cups. His shuffling gait and his careless housekeeping reminded her strongly and suddenly of Aberforth Dumbledore. She wondered if that had something to do with Snape's sudden, newfound hostility.

"You do now," he snapped. "I do not intend to let you sleep until we are in Oxfordshire. Drink the coffee, Granger."

The bartender returned, with two cups full of what Hermione supposed must be coffee, but which more closely resembled very thick, very foul-tasting black paint. Snape drank his down in two swallows and didn't appear to notice the taste. Hermione made a valiant effort but got only three sips down before she was overcome with nausea and had to stop.

"That's disgusting," she said, whispering again.

"Drink it anyway."

"I'll vomit. I can't."

He scowled, giving a vigorous swipe across his chin to catch any coffee that might have dripped into his beard, and then stood up. "Very well. You will stay awake without aid."

"Fine, as long as I don't have to drink any more of that."

He took her cup and finished what she'd left, wiping his beard again and then standing up without further ceremony. They left without another word.

0 0 0

Hermione was asleep, her head rocking slightly against the window with the motion of the train. Severus raised his hand to wake her for the fifteenth time in as many minutes, and then put it down again. As far as he could tell, there was nobody else magical on the train. Granted, it was difficult to be sure without a wand, but one could generally sense at least a faint trace of magical signature.

Not, of course, that such a thing made it any wiser to relax. It would just be better if she were quiet.

After he'd cut her hair, she'd insisted on stopping to buy toothbrushes and toothpaste--a ridiculous extravagance, especially when her parents were dentists and could surely provide her with an endless supply of dental hygiene products in a mere six hours--and cleaning her teeth. Twice.

He ran his tongue over his teeth, which were slick and still tasted distantly of mint. She'd insisted that he brush his teeth as well. What she had actually said was that if he didn't have the courtesy to stop breathing through his mouth, the least he could do was make an effort to see to it that his breath smelled slightly less intolerable.

His suspicions had been confirmed. Hermione Granger was a harpy. He pushed back against his seat, stretching until he heard his vertebrae give a satisfying series of pops. He'd suspected it for quite some time, given the snippets of arguments he'd caught across the Great Hall, or echoing down corridors, or through the walls in Grimmauld Place. She liked to browbeat, and she liked to lecture, and she worked herself into fits of righteous indignation over things that were, in Severus's opinion, an utter waste of his time and hers.

The train lurched, and her eyes snapped open.

"I wasn't asleep," she said, attempting to hide the exhaustion in her voice.

He ignored her.

It began to rain. She stared out the window at the passing countryside, her breath fogging the glass. They were accustomed to long hours of silence, and neither of them spoke.

The light outside began to dim, until they could see their reflections in the window. Hermione raised her head slightly, and, though she was still wearing the dark glasses over her eyes, he imagined that he could see her staring. She looked remarkably different, so different that he was still not entirely sure that he really _was_ sitting beside Miss Granger and not some other malnourished wastrel. Her cheekbones were sharp, and her slightly baggy jumper only emphasized her skinniness, rather than hiding it.

She put one hand to the side of her head. "I didn't know you could cut hair."

He shrugged indifferently and opened the packet Draco had given them, removing the remains of the loaf of bread and breaking it evenly in half. Almost evenly in half.

He gave her the bigger half, from force of habit.

"My father was a barber," he said, when he'd eaten a bite. "Not an illustrious trade, nor one that ever held appeal for me, but I was required to work in his shop every day until I left for Hogwarts, and every summer until I became of age. In the latter portion of that time, he occasionally required me to stand in for him when he was ... indisposed."

She looked directly at him for the first time, and he could see her eyebrows above the sunglasses and the quizzical wrinkle of her forehead. "You worked in a barber's shop?"

"Even if it is merely a mnemonic trick to help you retain information, Miss Granger, it is unspeakably tiresome when you continually repeat everything you hear."

"I'm sorry." She took her own sunglasses off, inspecting the bread he'd given her. "It's just ... I think of all the things you could have said about how you grew up, that's the last I would have expected."

He sneered at her. "What you would or would not have expected is of precisely zero interest to me. Nor, in fact, is there any legitimate reason for my youth or any other part of my personal life to be of interest to you."

She had opened her mouth to eat a morsel of bread, but she closed it without taking the bite and looked at him, annoyed. "On that, I'm afraid you're wrong. My mum and dad are going to want to know at least a few things about you, and it isn't uncommon to ask questions about where someone grew up, or what they do, or--or things like that. You may as well tell me a few things, or make some things up to tell me, at least. I don't care if it's the truth, but mum and dad have been through enough this year. I'd like to make this as easy as possible for them."

Severus snorted, amused. "I hardly think that oiling the social gears will do anything to ameliorate a situation in which they are forced to give refuge to their escaped prisoner-of-war daughter and her former profes--"

"Well _I_ do," she snapped, "and as I'm the expert on the subject of my parents--or closer to being an expert than you ever will be, anyway--I think that, for once, I'm the one who can be giving a few of the orders."

"For once?" His voice dripped with as much sarcasm as he could muster.

"What's that supposed to mean?" They had been speaking in whispers, but her voice started to rise slightly now.

"I have no reason to explain myself to you, especially not if you are going to shriek like a banshee when I attempt to discuss it."

"I didn't shriek like a banshee."

"You did, as a matter of fact. What are you doing?"

She had fished out the blanket Draco had given them and wrapped herself up in it. "I'm cold. I want to rest."

"We change trains shortly."

"Fine." She didn't move.

"Therefore, it might be wiser to stay alert and rest on the next train."

"I'm cold. I'm not going to sleep."

He ripped his bread in half and had another bite. It was still relatively fresh, and quite good. Granger pushed her glasses (which were slipping) back up the bridge of her nose, crossed her arms, and stared at the floor. Or, perhaps she had closed her eyes and was trying to sleep. He couldn't really say. He didn't honestly care, as long as she got up quickly when they changed trains--or if there was an emergency.

0 0 0

They changed trains in Coventry. It was quite dark on the platform, and the air was chilly. The darkness didn't bother her, but the chill did, and she wished that he hadn't turned into such a git when exposed to sunlight. All that she really wanted was to draw a bit closer to him for a bit of warmth. Well, that might have worked with Severus, but it certainly would never happen with Snape.

They had nearly an hour's wait, but Snape refused to linger inside, or to let Hermione wrap herself in the blanket while they waited.

"I'm cold," she said, frowning at him.

"You should have bought warmer things."

"I _did_ buy warm things, but I wasn't planning on standing outside on a train platform at night."

"You should have. You knew we would be traveling."

"I thought we'd wait indoors!"

"We are in _hiding_, Miss Granger," he snapped, his voice a vehement whisper. "I prefer to stay in the dark, where we are less likely to be seen."

"Can't I have the blanket, at least?"

"You may not. A blanket of its ... properties ... is one thing in a deserted field or on a train where it is not difficult to be relatively certain that others of our kind are not present. It is another thing entirely when one is in a public place and attempting to avoid notice by those who might be looking for it."

"You're still _holding_ it. What's the difference?"

He shrugged. "My godson packaged it in such a way as to make it less noticeable if it is kept contained."

"What's that supposed to mean? Did he do some sort of Notice-Me-N--"

Before she could finish the question, he'd clapped one hand over her mouth and drawn her further back into the shadows, making a shushing noise into her ear. She froze instinctively, her heart beating faster as fear twisted like a knot in her belly.

After a moment of silence, she heard it. Wings. Rather large wings, in fact. Those had to belong to a bird far larger than any that would generally be seen flying around a railroad station.

She'd nearly managed to convince herself that it couldn't be an owl when Snape tightened his grip and pulled her even deeper into shadow. It was too late, though. The bird had seen them, and it flew directly at them, landing on the edge of a bench and hooting softly as it held out its leg.

They both stared at it.

"Are you going to take it?" whispered Hermione, staring at the small roll of parchment tied to the owl's leg.

For answer, Snape reached one arm past her and, with his long, dirty fingers, removed the parchment. The owl took off immediately, without so much as another click of its beak. Soon, they couldn't hear even the beating of its wings.

Snape hadn't opened the parchment yet, but was looking in the direction that the owl had taken off in, frowning.

"Was that Malf--" she started to ask, but again, he covered her mouth.

"Do--not--say--his--name," whispered Snape. "Do not say any word concerning those matters when you have no way to determine who might be listening. Yes, it belongs to that family."

He unwrapped his fingers from her face again, and she frowned, licking her lower lip and tasting blood. He'd been rough, and the dry skin had cracked painfully. "Are you going to read it?"

Instead of answering, he unrolled the parchment and squinted at it. A moment later, he stepped closer to one of the small circles of light cast by the lamps on the platform and held the parchment up.

"It says," he said, crumpling it up in his hand, "that our escape has been discovered, some--" he stopped for a moment, calculating "--three hours ago. The ... courier had difficulty locating us, but our helper's father is not pleased."

"It says all that? He must have tiny handwriting."

He raised one eyebrow. "Not in general, and not that it matters, but yes."

She wrapped her arms around herself to keep out the cold. There was scarcely an ounce of fat left on her body, and the chill seemed to be settling into the deepest parts of her body. She had a sudden, terrible thought about Dementors, and took a step closer to him. Hostile or not, Snape was better than nobody. "What are we going to do?"

"We are going to board the train and continue on to Oxford, and thence to Abingdon."

"It's a long walk."

"You are certain that their identities remain unknown?"

"I certainly haven't told anyone."

"That means very little, but it is something. I suggest that you telephone them to meet us at the station."

"I'll go now, then. There's just enough time, and it's better than waiting ages for them to get themselves into the car. Mum's late for everything."

0 0 0

It took her five minutes to call, by which time it was time to get on the train and continue the last leg of their journey. It was beginning to get late, and his energy was flagging, but his vigilance didn't slip as he guided her onto the train and into her seat. He doubted very much that they would be molested on a train full of Muggles, but if Lucius was Minister, it might well happen. Lucius was a consummate manipulator and planner, but he was not above the heavy-handed use of Obliviators if he had them at his disposal and really, really wanted what he was after.

And, although the Wizarding world at large believed that Lucius Malfoy had reformed, Severus Snape did not. This made Severus a prime target. The only thing that Death Eaters hated more than a turncoat was Harry Potter.

Granger's head drooped more than once as the train made its way to Oxford. It was a short journey, less than an hour, but Severus couldn't relax. He spent the better part of the trip looking over his shoulder and watching for Death Eaters, or Snatchers. The Snatchers had been Lucius's bloody stupid plan in the first place, and he would, no doubt, bring them back if given half a chance. Severus didn't consider them to be Lucius's best idea.

Hermione woke up when the train began to slow, shifting in her seat and running her fingers through her short, spiky hair. The action made it stand up on end again, which Severus felt made it look rather better.

She glanced in the window, running her fingers through her hair again. "It's--it's not bad," she ventured, her voice quavering slightly.

"Your enthusiasm overwhelms me."

"I've never had my hair so short before."

"Any idiot with a pair of scissors can cut hair."

"If your father was a barber, why do you keep your hair so--so--well, like it is?"

Had Severus been a hag, he would gladly have given her the Evil Eye. "I am not obligated to imitate my father in anything, Miss Granger, nor is it any of your business whether I do or not. I thought I had made this sufficiently clear already, but it is evident that I have not."

The train slowed until it came to a final, shuddering halt. Hermione ignored him in order to press her face to the glass--looking for her parents, he supposed.

"You will not be able to see them in the dark."

They stood up, and she went back to fiddling with her hair. "I just--I'm not so sure this was a good idea. I don't want to endanger them."

"You endanger them by being their daughter. Stop fidgeting."

She stopped touching her hair and wrung her hands nervously instead. Severus took her arm and led her off the train, his eyes scanning constantly for anything suspicious.

But, in spite of his fears, they made it safely to the platform. Hermione stood still, scanning the few, scattered groups of people that stood there, until, apparently, she saw the two she was looking for. He prepared to stop her from speaking if she should be so stupid as to address her parents as mother and father, but she didn't. Instead, she broke into a run, forcing him to run after her.

They stopped, both panting heavily, in front of a rather pleasant-looking middle-aged couple. The man was tallish, with glasses and rather large, very straight, very white teeth. The woman was somewhat thin, and reminded him inexplicably of Molly Weasley, although he could not identify any specific similarity between them, unless it was the determined set of her jaw. He did not need to ask who ran the Granger household. No wonder she found the Weasley family so endearing.

"Hello," said Hermione, when she had caught her breath.

"My God," said Mrs. Granger--no, what had she called them? Wilkins--"your_ hair_."

"I'm sorry," said Granger, chagrined. "It wasn't my--there really wasn't a choice, you know. Oh! I need to introduce you. This is S--"

"Tobias," said Severus sharply, before she could get his name out. "Tobias Pince."

Her father's forehead creased thoughtfully. "Not related to that librarian, are you? Used to send letters to Herm--"

"Shut up," Granger hissed, her eyes going wide and fearful. At least she'd got the message.

"I beg your pardon?"

"We need to get to the car. It's too cold to stand here and chat. Helen is cold," said Severus, choosing a name off the top of his head and taking her arm, rather more solicitously than he had last time.

"Of course," said her mother, taking the hint. "I'm Monica, dear. Monica Wilkins. My husband is Wendell. So sorry that Her--Helen didn't make that clear. Social graces aren't exactly her strong point."

"Thanks," said Granger, rather petulantly.

"You're so skinny," said her mother. "What on earth have you been doing?"

Hermione didn't answer until they'd got into the car and were driving. "We've been in prison."

"Prison? You don't mean Ass--what was it?"

"Azkaban," said Severus, sniffing disdainfully. "And no, she doesn't. Prisoners of war."

The car ride continued as smooth as ever, but Wendell Wilkins's knuckles went very white around the steeling wheel as he gripped it harder.

"What exactly do you mean by that?" asked Monica, her voice rather too polite.

"Don't be thick, mum," said Hermione.

"Hermione Jean Granger, I am your mother--"

"And therefore you're capable of not being stupid. He means we were prisoners of war, just like he said."

Wendell checked the mirrors on the car. "Do you mean Death Eaters?"

Severus frowned. "Yes."

"I see. Incidentally, who are you, actually?" He saw Wendell's eyes in the mirror, looking at him. He wondered how much Granger had told her parents about her so-called exploits over the years. He imagined it must be quite a bit, given their blasé attitude about this latest one.

"He's Severus Snape," said Hermione at once. Severus winced. "He was my--"

"Potions teacher," interrupted her mother. "Yes, I remember. Bit uncreative to steal the librarian's name, I think." She twisted around in her seat to look back at Granger. "It really was the sweetest thing, you know. Only you would make such good friends with the school librarian that she'd write to you over the summer."

"Mum!"

"Oh I'm sure he knew about it. Teachers talk about that sort of thing, you� know."

"I didn't mean that."

"Well, it _was_ uncreative. And Tobias is hardly a common name, if you didn't want to draw attention to it."

"Monica, really," said Wendell in a mild voice.

Severus looked from the father to the mother and back again. Amazing, really. It was like the Weasleys without the ridiculous ginger hair.

"Tobias is my first name," he said, not really sure why he was bothering to explain. "Severus is my middle name."

"Why don't you go by Tobias, then?"

Hermione slouched lower in her seat, covering her face with her arm. "Mum, _please_."

"It was also my father's name," he said, coldly.

"You wizards certainly do go in for unusual names, I've noticed. Well, not all of you--Harry and Ron are both quite sensible, and so are Arthur and Molly, for that matter. But really, that Headmaster for instance--Albus Dumbledore? What kind of a name is that?"

"Monica," said Wendell again, his tone firmer this time, "leave the man alone."

"I was only asking."

"Anyway," said Wendell, sounding falsely cheerful, "how long do you think you'll be staying?"

Severus scratched his beard and wondered idly if there was any way that Hermione and he could have picked up lice from one of the dirtier Death Eaters. "Indefinitely."

"Oh lovely," said Monica. "It's been ages since we've had Hermione home for any real length of time."

"Mum, dad," said Hermione quietly, "can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can, my love," said Wendell, turning the car onto a side street.

"Have you--have you heard from the Weasleys lately? Or anyone?"

"Not since we visited in the summer, darling, and got the house all set up. You know how those things go. People are busy with their own lives, and things get so hectic."

"Oh. I thought they might have let you know about--about me going missing."

Monica sniffed. "Our experience is that people never let us know you're in trouble until after the danger has passed."

"And you haven't heard anything about Ron or Harry?"

Wendell stopped the car in front of an empty lot. "Should we have? Severus--I hope you don't mind if I call you Severus, as we're going to be living together for a while--if you'll just read this, I'd be obliged."

He passed Severus a small piece of paper, the size of a business card, with an address written on it. As soon as he'd finished reading it, the lot changed before his eyes, until it held a modest house and garage, inside of which Wendell now parked the car.

"I--they told us that Ron and Harry are d-dead," said Granger in a very small voice. "I thought maybe if they were, someone would have maybe--perhaps they would have called or written or something."

"Oh, darling," said Monica. "I'm afraid we haven't heard a word. The Weasleys still haven't got a telephone, but we can write tonight. The local post is useless, but Molly told me that there's a Wizarding post exchange in Oxford, and we can have daddy go over first thing in the morning and owl."

"I'm afraid we can't," said Severus, closing the car door behind him as they all got out. "If Weasley really is dead, there is a good chance that the rest of the family has been killed as well, or else that they are being closely watched and monitored. To attempt to contact them would be to completely jeopardize the protection and anonymity that you have here. In fact, you should not even use the post exchange."

"Isn't there any way we can get news?" said Granger, dismayed.

"For the time being, it would be most unwise to contact anybody magical at all. That," he said coldly, "is the very definition of being in hiding, Miss Granger."

"Well then," said Wendell, his pleasant tone now sounding somewhat forced, "you must be quite tired. Let's go in and show you to your rooms, shall we? Yours is the same of course, Hermione. Severus, if you'll just follow me, it's up the stairs and first door on the left. Monica's just put fresh sheets on and laid out some towels for you." He led the way, showing Severus into the guest bedroom and gesturing vaguely around it. "If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask."

"Thank you," said Severus stiffly, unsure of exactly what one said to the parents of an ex-student who were now offering to hide one from Death Eaters in their guest bedroom.

"We'll just leave you to get settled in," said Monica.

They shut the door, leaving him alone in the room. He heard footsteps, and then the opening and closing of a door. Granger's room, it appeared, was directly next to his.

He turned off the light and stretched out on the bed, more exhausted than he could ever remember feeling before. As he fell asleep, he heard a muffled noise of tears, and the gentle voices of Granger's parents, evidently making an effort to comfort and reassure their daughter.

His last conscious thought was that they were fools for thinking that such a thing was possible.


	6. Chapter 6

DISCLAIMER: All characters seen here are the exclusive property of JK Rowling. She's the genius, I'm the fangirl who can't resist playing with her creations.

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**Chapter 6**

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"_I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul, and did not know it__._"  
-Oscar Wilde, _De Profundis_

The first thing that Severus did when he woke up was to take a shower. The water was blessedly hot and for a long while, all he did was linger beneath it, relishing the sensation of months of accumulated grime being washed away.

When he'd had enough of standing in the water to make him feel adequately reacquainted with the happy concept of washing, he began to look about himself. The shower was well-equipped, with a variety of soaps, and three bottles of shampoo. Each of these was neatly labeled with an initial, in permanent ink: W, M, and H.

He sniffed the contents of each bottle in turn, studied their ingredients, and then helped himself to Wendell's, lathering his hair liberally and rubbing it into his scalp for a long time. The water ran brown down the drain when he rinsed it clean.

He stayed in the shower until long after the water had gone cold, scrubbing himself thoroughly and taking careful stock of his body as he did. He was disturbingly thin, and still covered in ugly bruises. His body was entirely piebald, covered with mottled purples, greens, and yellows.

That explained the soreness, then.

He spent almost as long drying himself as he'd spent washing. It hurt to move in any way that required even remote flexibility. When he was finished and dressed, he even went so far as to clean his teeth. It didn't make a visible difference, but it added still more to his pleasant sense of having been scoured utterly clean.

Wendell had left a safety razor and a can of shaving cream on the bathroom counter, along with a small note indicating that it was for Severus's use. It wasn't as convenient as a Charm, but Severus was adept with a razor, and made short work of his beard. When he was done, he was almost shocked by the gauntness of his face. The beard had somehow prevented him from realizing that he looked just as starved as Granger did, if not more so.

"All tidied up, I see," said Wendell brightly, when Severus found his way into the immaculate, old-fashioned kitchen. "Hungry?"

"Famished," he said, surprised at his own candor.

"Monica's out buying supplies. We don't stock a great deal of food when it's just the two of us. We use our new names even at home," he added. "Saves confusion. We'd be in all sorts of mix-ups if we didn't."

"I ... apologize for the inconvenience that my arrival--" said Severus awkwardly.

"Not at all, not at all. You get used to unusual things when you have a daughter like Hermione. Granted," he added thoughtfully, "we don't generally get the opportunity to help her when she's in the middle of something. She's quite good at keeping things quiet; prefers to ask for forgiveness rather than for permission, you might say. Really, it's sort of fun to be involved, for once. Tea?"

"Thank you," said Severus. "All the same, while you must be pleased to have your daughter here, I am unknown to you, and--"

"Not _exactly_ unknown. We're well acquainted with you by reputation, you know. Hermione is quite an admirer of yours."

This information was so completely unexpected that Severus found himself at a loss for words, and so he kept silent.

"She's not awake yet," said Wendell, after a short pause. "Will you have a bit of toast with your tea?"

"I would appreciate it, yes."

Wendell set two liberally buttered slices of toast and a cup of strong tea in front of him and sat down.

"I'm surprised that she is still asleep," said Severus, striking about uncertainly for a subject of conversation. "I found her to be a rather fitful sleeper."

Wendell's expression didn't exactly change, except for something about the look in his eyes. Then, he twisted his face as if he were trying to get a fragment of something out of his teeth. "Exactly what _is_ your experience with Hermione's sleeping habits?"

Severus took a moment to mentally castigate himself for making such a basic error. Sleeping with Granger and holding her while she slept had become so routine that he'd slipped and forgotten that it was completely abnormal in any situation other than their being imprisoned together--to say nothing of the other things they had done.

"We were held in the same room," he said cautiously. That was safe enough. Her parents didn't need to know what sharing a room had led to. Severus was not overeager for it to be discovered that he'd been intimate with a former student, and he would sooner die than inform that student's parents of it, no matter what the circumstances.

His own feelings on it, besides that, were still too muddled. He had grown very accustomed to her. She was, in her way, pleasant to be around--or so he thought she would be, if one could divorce the thought of her from the thought of base captivity. The last woman he'd got on as peaceably with was Lily Evans, and that had only been peaceable to a point, although he had seen enough at Hogwarts and Grimmauld Place over the years to believe that Hermione Granger could hold her own in the ranks of shrewish women, given half a mind.

The problem, of course, was that Granger wasn't a free woman. He was perceptive enough to realize that. Her heart was Weasley's, and Severus wasn't about to go chasing after a woman already in love with someone else--not again. Better for both his heart and his conscience if he remembered at the outset that what had occurred between them had been a matter of pure survival, a quick and easy way to assuage their mutual need for human contact. He wasn't enough of a sentimental fool to equate sex with love, no matter how little he got of the former or how many years he had pined for the loss of the latter.

"I trust that you were gentleman enough to turn your back when she needed privacy?" Wendell's voice broke into his thoughts.

Severus carefully tore one piece of toast into two halves, taking a bite of the smaller and, from force of habit, setting the larger aside. "It was dark."

Wendell's eyebrows went up slightly. "Surely not all the time."

He shrugged. "There were one or two occasions when the room was lit, yes."

"You're telling me that you were living in total darkness for--what, three months?"

"I am."

"With my daughter?"

Severus leaned back in the chair, fixing Wendell with his eyes. "Be thankful that I was there. She arrived after I did. It is far worse to be in such a situation alone, I assure you. Their goal was to come as close as they could to creating an environment of total sensory deprivation. They worked against themselves by keeping us together."

Wendell's expression remained carefully guarded, but he stood up abruptly, his chair making a loud noise as it scraped across the floor. "Excuse me, please," he said, and abruptly left the room.

His appetite sated by the few bites of food that he'd taken, Severus put his dishes carefully into the sink and went back up the stairs, planning to return to his bedroom. He stopped in the hallway instead when he saw Granger's father standing before him.

Wendell had opened the door to Granger's bedroom and stood in the doorway, gazing in at her. "It's difficult," he said softly, without moving, "having a daughter like her. Brilliant girl, friends with a war hero, all that sort of thing. Dumbledore wrote to us occasionally about things--there was an incident with a troll in her first year. But then, you most likely knew about that."

Severus had moved close enough that he could see over Wendell's shoulder. Granger's curtains were drawn tightly closed, shutting out the morning light. She lay on the floor, her head pillowed on her arms, fast asleep. "I knew about the troll, yes," he said uncomfortably.

"We didn't realize how unusual that was. We'd only just found out our daughter was a witch, after all. Who was to say what might be normal for her? We didn't know a thing about that lifestyle--_your _lifestyle--back then."

Severus held his peace.

"What's one supposed to do, as a parent?" Wendell's voice caught slightly. "How do you protect your daughter from dangers that you thought couldn't possibly exist? I'm a dentist, for God's sake. Trolls and dragons and evil wizards are supposed to be fairy tales." He leaned on the door frame wearily, staring at Granger. "Do you have children?"

Severus blinked, caught off-guard. "I should say not."

"You'll understand, Severus, when you do. You'll understand what it's like for a father."

He was unsure how to respond, and so again kept silent. Granger slept quietly, as she always did. Severus was struck by how feminine she looked, her face flushed with sleep. "I daresay I will," he finally said.

"Did you sleep on the floor also?"

He looked back at Wendell and reached up to touch his chin, where his beard had so very recently been. The smoothness of his skin felt a little strange after he'd finally got used to having facial hair. "Last night? No, I did not." His eyes moved back towards Granger. After waking multiple times, twice from nightmares and three times from sheer discomfort, he had considered it. The bed was far too soft.

In the end, he'd decided just not to sleep at all.

0 0 0

Hermione woke with a start when she heard the sound of footsteps outside of the room. Darkness loomed around her, as always.

"Severus?" she whispered, feeling about on the cold wooden floor for him. He wasn't anywhere within her reach. Fighting a sudden feeling of panic, she spoke louder. "Severus? _Severus_?"

She heard more footsteps, faster than before. She shuddered, her body tensing with fear. They'd heard her, and Severus wasn't there. She was alone. She had to face them alone. How could he have left her without her knowledge?

The door opened, flooding the room with light. When she opened her aching eyes, she saw a thin, clean-shaven man staring in at her, a somewhat surprised expression on his face. "You called me," he said. It was not exactly a question, though he quirked one eyebrow up curiously.

"Sever--Professor," she said, looking around the room in confusion. She was in a bedroom filled with her own old, familiar things, a bedroom she'd slept in before, after she'd helped place the protective enchantments on her mother and father's new house. She was home, then, and it was a freshly-shaved, tidy-looking doppelganger of Professor Snape who was standing in her bedroom door. The disconnect between where she was and where she thought she'd been was so strong that she could have believed she'd hallucinated the whole thing, except that Snape was in her house and wearing her father's second-favorite jumper.

"It is I," he said dryly. "Did you require something of me?"

"I--it was dark."

"You closed the curtains."

The cold terror that had gripped her began to slowly recede. "I thought I'd been dreaming." She waved helplessly around. "About this. About here."

"Ah," he said. "Shall I fetch one of your parents?"

She rubbed her eyes again, looking around the room--_her _room. "No, thanks. Er--what time is it?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Just past five o'clock in the evening."

"I slept that long?"

He shrugged, his eyes sweeping over her bedroom with a look too expressionless to be called interest. "Evidently."

"Oh." She looked at him. He seemed distinctly uncomfortable about being there. "I'm--er--I'm just going to have a shower. Is there any dinner?"

"I have been informed that there is a chicken roasting in the oven." He lingered for another awkward moment and then walked away from the still-open door, leaving her alone again.

The scent of the chicken began to waft into the room, making her stomach growl. When she got up, her body ached terribly. Her muscles were as sore as if she'd run a marathon the day before. Was she really so out of shape that she couldn't even walk around a village and travel by train without rendering herself nearly incapacitated from stiffness and pain?

She fairly hobbled to the bathroom, holding on to the wall for support. Locking herself in, she turned the water on as hot as it would go. There weren't words to express how good it felt to be clean, and she scrubbed herself vigorously, her muscles gradually loosening and relaxing under the spray.

When she had washed as thoroughly as she possibly could, had cleaned her teeth, and run a comb through her short, spiky hair, she returned to her bedroom. It took a long time to choose clothes. She was cold, but half of her jumpers had been made by Mrs. Weasley, and she didn't want to think of that family more than she could possibly help.

In the end, she chose a warm green shirt that her mother had bought for her nearly five years prior and that she'd avoided wearing because she simply hadn't felt like arguing with Ron and Harry over whether it was an acceptable color for a loyal Gryffindor to ever wear. Before she left the room, she pushed the Weasley jumpers as far into the back of her closet as she could and hid them behind several rather frilly dresses that she wouldn't be caught dead wearing.

When she ventured downstairs, her mother hurried to greet her. "Hermione!"

She found herself enveloped in a tight hug, and returned it a little awkwardly. Her parents were affectionate, but it was strangely embarrassing to be hugged like that in front of Severus--or, rather, in front of Snape.

"You're just in time. Come and sit down. The chicken's only just come out of the oven. Sit _down_, Hermione. You must be famished."

Her father didn't say anything, but once she'd sat down, he reached across the table and gave her hand a squeeze. She squeezed back, blinking away unexpected tears. For the first time, she fully realized how completely she had come to believe that she would never see them again.

Nobody spoke of that, however. Dinner was a bubbly, shallow affair, her mother's small talk punctuated by occasional requests for more food or drink. Whether she was Monica Wilkins or Elizabeth Granger, Hermione's mother was a woman who could be counted on to keep a dinner conversation going. Her parents, like all dentists, were experts in the art of asking polite but vague questions, and Hermione found herself increasingly thankful that at least Snape didn't have a drill crammed into his mouth, although he could hardly have looked more uncomfortable or answered any more tersely if he had.

He kept his responses primarily to monosyllables, but he did manage to ask a few polite questions of his own and offer a sincere, if ungracious, compliment on the cooking. The day that she'd slept appeared to have been enough to acquaint her parents with his brusque manner, and her mother smiled brilliantly and accepted the praise with as much enthusiasm as if he'd stood and composed an ode to the potatoes on the spot.

0 0 0

"Miss Granger," said Severus a few days later, when her parents had gone to work and left them alone, "I wish to have a word with you."

She was sitting in an armchair, watching the fire, but when he spoke, she looked up at him questioningly. Their eyes met briefly, and then he looked away. In all those years, he'd never looked at her eyes before, and now he regretted having done so. It made her real to him in an entirely new way--one that he didn't like.

"It would be best if we established--that is to say--there are things we must discuss."

"Sir?"

He did his best not to wince. Every time she spoke, he heard the voice of an erstwhile lover coming from the mouth of a student who he had made no effort to like. The cognitive dissonance was almost dizzying. Miss Granger sat before him, but to conjure Hermione he merely needed to close his eyes and listen.

But, he reminded himself, Hermione no longer existed--at least not for him. "I assume," he said, with what he hoped was delicacy, "that we are in mutual agreement that there are certain things which transpired in the past months that it would be better not to discuss."

Her cheeks flooded with color, but she met his eyes again quite frankly. "You--I--you needn't fear that I'll try and get you in trouble," she said, faltering slightly over the words.

He looked at her in silence, unsure how to understand her. It had seemed so easy to comprehend her at times in the darkness, when there was only the subtle nuance of her voice to contend with, and not the myriad of expressions that traveled across her face when he looked at her. He suddenly found himself tempted to use Legilimency on her, to know what she was thinking as clearly as she knew it herself. Could she think so little of him as to believe that his concern was the distant possibility of blackmail?

He allowed his lip to curl slightly. "Rest assured, Miss Granger," he said, the tense, chilled feeling in his chest making itself heard in his voice, "I trust you to be a paragon of Gryffindor honor. I merely wished to discuss what--"

Her expression changed to another one that he could not read. "Oh," she said quickly, "I see. I only--you--we can--we ought to just forget about it. We can forget it happened, it's--it's all right."

He had the self-control not to flinch at her ham-handedness and restricted his response to a sharp nod. That was one hurdle jumped. "Then we have an understanding," he said, not entirely truthfully. "I would not like to be responsible for giving rise to false ... impressions."

She finally looked away from him, releasing him from her gaze. "No," she said quietly. "I--er--I meant to ask you, sir, what we ought to do next."

He raised his eyebrows in surprise that she'd felt a need to ask. "We have discussed this already, M--" he started to address her as he had when she was a student, but found himself unable to form the words, and settled for not using a name at all. "I do not feel it is wise to immediately attempt a journey unarmed and unassisted, and to contact the Weasleys puts everybody involved at risk of exposure."

"I thought it might be best if we got in touch with them as soon as possible. I don't want to just sit about and wait, if things are really as bad as they--"

"Don't be absurd," he snapped, irritated. "What help do you suppose you could offer, in your present state?" Surely she could not be so self-deceived as to be unaware of her appearance, of her weakness. She was almost unrecognizable.

"You prefer to hide indefinitely in Oxfordshire, I suppose?" she said, narrowing her eyes. "How very Slyth--"

"How clever, Miss Granger," he said, anger suddenly making him equal to facing the distance that the name created between them when he said it. "Cast aspersions on my House in order to deflect a logical argument."

"It _is_ rather clever, isn't it? I learned it from one of my professors."

"We have no objective knowledge of what awaits us outside of this house. If Lucius Malfoy has truly staged the coup they say he has, our situation is bleak. Perhaps you remember what it was like to spend months hiding from Seekers and attempting to get from one place to the next undetected? Do you think you will find it easier in the dead of winter, without magic, after weeks of malnutrition and idleness?"

"We didn't have any money then. My mum and dad could help us, we made it all the way here by train, and--"

"And were nearly caught, or did you not understand what it meant that we were located by owl? If an owl can find us, there are others who can do the same, should we venture outside of these wards. How do you propose to protect yourself from our enemies, should they locate us, as they surely would? Perhaps we can throw money at them." He sneered mockingly at her, taking a twisted sort of triumph in the color that suddenly suffused her face.

"If it's really as hopeless as all that, what good will it do to wait?" Her voice caught in an odd way, one that he had learned to identify immediately, and he looked away before he could see her tears.

"What is hopeless now may be less hopeless in the future, Miss Granger," he said, forcing himself to soften his tone a fraction. "They will not always be looking for us so vigilantly. We escaped less than forty-eight hours ago, and their pride has been wounded. Given time, they will become distracted by other matters."

"How do you know?" she muttered, her voice quavering.

"Stop acting like an irrational child and use your much-vaunted brains to some effect. If you question my logic, I shall point out that they are at least vestigially human, and will therefore lose interest in most things that are not immediately profitable to them. If you question my authority, I will remind you that I am, of the two of us, far more qualified to pontificate on the nature of Death Eaters and their hangers-on."

For several moments, silence reigned. Severus crossed his arms and studied the floor, willing his mind to clear itself. He could hear Hermione breathing, could hear the effort she was making to calm herself.

"What if it all turns out to have been lies? What if everything is completely fine?" she finally asked, her voice carefully controlled.

"Then," he said, with just a hint of impatience, "we have lost nothing by delaying, except to have put off our ... joyful reunions a little while longer."

"It's just been so long already, and I can't go on without knowing if--whether Ron--"

He scowled, more irritated by the mention of Ronald Weasley than anything that had gone before. "I beg to differ, Miss Granger. You _can _go on, and you _will_. Don't be melodramatic. It's highly unbecoming in an adult."

"Fine," she said shortly, standing up. "Since you've got it all settled, I suppose we'll stay."

"Don't even begin to imagine that you'll get away with some half-baked Gryffindor scheme to sneak out of here on your own and return heroically to Weasley's side--or to his grave, which is equally likely."

She stared at him, hurt and betrayal written so plainly on her face that even louts like Potter or Weasley could have identified them. Then she turned and walked out of the room, leaving him to attempt to convince himself that cruelty had been the only possible way to convince her to stay where she would be safe.

It seemed to him that the argument was beginning to grow stale, after so many years of use.

0 0 0

Had they been at Hogwarts, or even at Grimmauld Place, Hermione would simply have put her head down and avoided Snape with all possible assiduity. In her parents' small, snug little home, however, such a course of action was impossible. She would have to speak to him, at some point, or her parents would notice that something was wrong, and there was no possible way to explain to them what the matter was.

This was partially due to the fact that Hermione herself didn't know. In the endless dark, it was easy to believe that they'd never make it out alive, or that things would return to normal somehow if they did. History, it seemed, really was doomed to repeat itself. She, and the vast majority of the Wizarding world, had believed the same thing about defeating Voldemort. If it had been true, there would have been no Death Eaters left to capture her. Now, of course, the foolishness of that idea was more than evident.

To live with him in such a strange, domestic way after all that had passed felt like an impossibility, and to go still longer without knowing the truth about Ron was a terrible prospect.

But he was right. There was nothing for it. And, as strange and uncomfortable as things were, he was her last connection to what she fully considered to be her true home, and although he was as cut off from it as she, it was better to be cut off together than to be cut off alone.

"Miss Granger," said Snape, breaking the silence that had stretched between them for nearly two days and startling her out of her thoughts, "I wonder if I might inspect the magical books you have on hand. Your father informs me that you have a relatively sizable collection of ... extracurricular reading materials."

"Oh," she said, taken aback, "er."

"I'm sure she'd be delighted," said her father, giving her a meaningful look. "I've been telling him all about your books, Hermione. He was quite interested, and it would help him pass the time."

Hermione sighed. "I'd be delighted, Professor Snape."

Snape nodded, and her father gave her hand an approving pat. "Don't entertain much at school, I suppose," he said to her, evidently making an effort to tactfully inform her that she'd committed a faux pas. "Seems silly to keep calling each other by such formal terms, after everything that's passed. Makes me feel a little too much like I'm back at school myself. What's wrong with your given names? School's finished, after all. You've got your exams done."

If Snape was distressed by the idea of returning to the use of her first name, he hid it well. He bowed slightly in her direction. "Hermione," he said, enunciating her name crisply, "I would be obliged to you if you would allow me the pleasure of perusing your private library."

"Let me just show you up to my room, then," she said. The only thing worse than letting him into her bedroom was the idea of letting him in there alone.

It seemed to her that he lingered unreasonably long over his choice, tilting his head to one side and reading each individual title, his eyes moving over each neatly shelved book with an almost insolent deliberation. Finally, he took two volumes of Einhard's Complete History of Magic, thumbed through them briefly, and tucked them under his arm, apparently satisfied. Hermione waited silently for him to leave, but he simply remained standing there, looking first at her bookshelf and then rather awkwardly around her bedroom.

"I believe it is possible that I owe you an apology," he said stiffly, when the awkward silence had grown so intense that Hermione was prepared to say something if only to end it. "While I maintain and will continue to maintain that the strength of my feelings about our future plans is entirely correct and appropriate, and that the strategy I put forth is the only appropriate one to pursue, I concede that perhaps I did not put things as--I wish you to understand that I intended no malice, per se."

Hermione frowned. "Per se?"

"My intention in initiating the conversation was not to ... criticize."

"I see." She looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. "Apology accepted, then."

"I wish to be certain that you understand the _logic_ of my argument. I continue to feel responsible for your safety to some degree, as well as for my own. I assure you, if I felt it was feasible to venture forth immediately back to our own world without meeting almost certain death, I would do so at once."

Her hair felt strangely unfamiliar when she ran her fingers through it. "I understand."

There was another pause. Still, he didn't make a move to leave. Finally, he cleared his throat. "If Lucius Malfoy has indeed overcome the Order, it is possible that we will have to remain in hiding indefinitely."

"You mean not go back at _all_?" She looked at him incredulously, horrified and angry at the idea.

"One or both of us might perhaps attempt to make contact with Order sympathizers in France or elsewhere, but it would be most unwise to risk discovery here without reinforcements."

"We'd try and get in touch with people first, wouldn't we?"

He snorted. "I do not enjoy traveling. I would prefer to avoid having to endure it."

She didn't speak for a moment, considering that. "Fine," she said. "Is that all?"

Something in his face changed, but she hadn't the first idea how to understand what it meant. His face was a blank mask to her, as much as it ever had been during school. When she looked at him, she could see only the immobile, inscrutable scowl of the Potions master. He didn't shrug, but it seemed to her that, had it been Harry or Ron, he might have. "Very well. I thank you for the loan of the books."

It was many long minutes after he closed the door before she finally started to cry, and longer still before she could force herself to stop.

* * *

Author's Notes: I'm sure most of you were beginning to think this was abandoned. It certainly hasn't followed the update rate of Treasure, but real life will intrude now and again, and real life intruded with a vengeance.

I have chapter 7 more than halfway finished, so the next update should come sooner than the last. Keep an eye on my blog for more information, zeegrindylows dot livejournal dot com.


	7. Chapter 7

DISCLAIMER: All characters seen here are the exclusive property of JK Rowling. She's the genius, I'm the fangirl who can't resist playing with her creations.

* * *

**Chapter 7**

* * *

"_It is a wound that bleeds when any hand but that of love touches it, and even then must bleed again"_

-Oscar Wilde, _De Profundis_

Winter dragged on. It seemed ages before Hermione could sleep through the night on her own bed. She didn't ask Snape if he was having similar problems. In spite of the justifications she'd given herself at the time, sleeping with him seemed, in the light of day, to have been a singularly bad idea. She could hardly bring herself to look him in the face when she thought about it.

And yet, in the bleakness of the night, when she lay sleepless and terrified on her too-soft bed, she longed for Severus—_not_ for Snape—with a palpable sense of loss.

0 0 0

"Mezzanine," said Wendell triumphantly, laying the last of the small wooden tiles on the Scrabble board. "And that's on a triple."

Monica and Hermione threw their hands up in disgust. Severus merely raised his eyebrows and carefully tallied up the score, scratching the numbers into the proper column.

"That brings me up to an even three hundred, I think," said Wendell jocularly.

"This is why we only play with you at Christmas," retorted his wife, with contrived bitterness.

Severus found himself fighting a smile. As much as he hated the loss of magic in his life, there was a part of him that had to admit that this forced domesticity was pleasant. Wendell and Monica were intelligent and convivial enough, and Hermione—well, they tolerated each other with as much success as they ever had, he supposed.

He allowed himself to steal a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. She was staring at her tiles, chewing on the edge of her thumb, her brows knitted in concentration. At the sight of her, he felt a sudden, if subtle, pang. He had not anticipated how keenly he would regret the loss of the Hermione he had come to know in his imprisonment.

It had been easy at the time. He rearranged his tiles into another sequence. She had simply been a woman, any woman, and a companion. When he couldn't see her, he could forget her true identity and begin afresh. More importantly, perhaps, he could forget his own identity. Hindsight made him feel that it had been almost a pleasure, in spite of their captivity, to shed his professorial persona and simply share himself with a woman.

A particularly shrill note from the children's choir on the radio interrupted his thoughts. "That," he said dourly, jerking his head toward the radio, "is a crime against music."

Wendell made a snorting noise that Severus had learned to identify as an attempt to get away with laughing at something he feared Monica might find less than amusing. He thought he saw one corner of Hermione's mouth twitch into a smile, but the expression vanished as soon as it appeared, and a moment later he found himself thinking that it must have been mere wishful thinking.

"Hermione used to sing in a choir, you know," volunteered Monica. "More cocoa, Severus?"

He passed his mug across the table to be refilled. "I was not aware that you were musical." He refrained, as always, from addressing her by name, merely casting his eyes in her direction.

"I'm not," said Hermione, a bit wryly. Severus didn't wait for elaboration. She never elaborated, at least not when she spoke with him.

"You weren't as bad as all that," said Wendell fairly. "No worse than any of the other five year olds, in any case."

"Adze," said Hermione, rather regretfully, ignoring her father as she set her tiles down. "Only thirteen points."

"Well played, darling," said Monica kindly. Monica seemed to have decided that Hermione was fragile, and needed encouragement at all times. Severus wasn't entirely sure he disagreed, although he found her attitude to be off-puttingly cloying at times.

Wendell rattled the Scrabble tiles in their bag before he drew seven new ones. "I've said it before, but even if the circumstances are bad, it's a pleasure having you home for Christmas. I can hardly remember the last time we did, you know." He passed the bag to Hermione and gave her hand a quick squeeze.

"And it's lovely having Severus, as well," Monica added.

Severus and Hermione held their peace.

Late that night, Severus was wakened by a creaking of the floorboards in the hallway. Instantly wide awake, he slipped out of bed and crossed his bedroom, navigating with no trouble in the dark. He opened the door just in time to see Hermione creeping down the stairs.

He prevaricated for a moment or two before making up his mind. Whatever their past, whatever their future, he had accepted some measure of responsibility for her, and until they were safely back home and out of hiding—he couldn't bring himself to consider a Muggle house in Oxford as fitting either of those criteria—that responsibility remained. It wasn't healthy for her to prowl around the house in the middle of the night, especially not in December, in her bare feet.

Pausing to pull on a pair of socks and a jumper, and to fetch similar articles to bring down to Hermione, he followed her.

He had no clear plan in his mind when he did it, only a knowledge that the house was freezing and that she, still painfully thin, would probably catch cold if he let her wander around the house in the middle of the night in nothing but cotton pajama pants and a t-shirt. These protective impulses always came at night, in the dark. Had he chosen to analyze the reason why, it would have made a fair amount of sense, he supposed. A glimpse of her in the dimness of the hallway, lit only from the nightlight in the bathroom, made her seem much more like _his _Hermione than the Hermione with whom he now lived.

Had he chosen to analyze the fact that he thought of her in any way as _his_ Hermione, he probably would not have followed her down the stairs.

Follow her he did, however, and he found her quickly, curled up on the floor in the darkened living room and shivering as she stared into the last dying embers of the fire. Something in his chest (perhaps his heart?) ached to hold and comfort her. He could hear the soft, telltale gasps that meant she was about to begin to cry in earnest. He loathed the sound for the way it rent his heart.

He cleared his throat, unsure of what to say, and she started.

"I ... was awakened by your passing in the hallway," he said awkwardly, when she turned to look at him. Looking her in the eyes, he could no longer fool himself that this girl belonged to him in any way. She was the same too-young, too-girlish, too-Gryffindor student that she had always been. He felt like swearing.

"I had a nightmare," she said, with unwonted candor.

He sat down beside her on the floor, placing the folded jumper and socks in her lap. "I thought you might be cold." Nightmares were something he had ample experience of, both his own and those of his students.

She picked up one sock and twisted it in her hands, but made no move to put it on. "Thanks," she whispered, her voice so soft that he had to bend his head toward hers to hear it.

They sat in silence, time seeming to drag just as much as it ever had during their imprisonment. There was a crack and a shower of sparks on the hearth as the last smoldering log on the fire collapsed completely.

"I wonder what they're doing right now," she murmured.

He didn't feel a need to ask who she meant. The question seemed to encompass everybody in their world, good and evil alike. Somehow, in the close and quiet darkness of Christmas night, the war from which they were in hiding seemed so far away that both of its opposing sides seemed more akin to one another than to the sheltered, mundane little household that had been their home for the last month.

The antique clock on the mantel struck three in the morning.

"Sleeping, I expect," he said dryly, when the tinny ringing of the last chime had finally died away.

She answered with a single, wry laugh. "Probably," she agreed. She chuckled, and then suddenly—and not entirely to Severus's surprise—she began to cry.

He was torn. He longed to seize her in his arms and hold her tightly. And yet, he had made it clear to both of them that he had no reason or desire to continue their liaisons. He did not wish to be accused of hypocrisy or lies; he'd had enough of those accusations to last him a lifetime, and he had no wish to hear them from her in addition to the rest.

Still, her tears grated on his soul. He flexed the mostly-atrophied muscles in his shoulders and neck in order to keep himself from writhing under the discomfort of it. And she continued to cry, bitterly, if softly.

He touched her shoulder, feeling like an awkward youth and hating himself for it. "We will return home, Hermione," he murmured, in the same determinedly reassuring voice he used to use on his young Slytherins when nightmares or homesickness made them cry out in the night. It was a more overtly optimistic statement than he had yet allowed himself to make, but she was so thin and frail and miserable, so desperately in need of comfort that he found himself murmuring in the dark what he had refused to say when the light was there to dispel the illusion that the girl he longed for was real.

She began to sob in earnest then, her whole body shaking with the force of her tears. And somehow, whether he had gathered her there or she had nestled in against him, he found that she was in his arms again, that her face was hidden in his chest. He could feel the heat of her breath through his jumper. He held her, closing his eyes. There on the cold floor, in the dark, with a weeping Hermione in his arms, he could imagine himself back in that dank prison. With physical torture a fading memory, he could almost wish himself back there, if it meant another few hours or days of pretending that she belonged to him, that he had any right to touch her body, to know her soul or her mind.

The memory of their first coupling returned to him vividly. Hadn't it begun just like this? His fingers trembled as he touched the back of her head, stroking and smoothing her hair as he attempted to comfort her. She was clean and fresh now as she had never been when he'd held her before, and yet when he inclined his head toward hers, he could still catch some scent that was quintessentially Hermione, some pheromone whose aroma never quite deserted her, no matter how clean she was. His hands itched to touch her breasts. His lips, unbidden, moved down until they almost rested atop her head.

He froze there, unable to quite kiss her. Unspoken or not, there had been an understanding between them. What was acceptable in the blindness of captivity was unthinkable now. He would not subject himself to her ridicule. Slowly, with all the self-control he could muster, he exhaled, feeling his own breath move across his face as it rebounded from her hair.

She froze, abruptly going silent.

"Severus," she whispered. He could feel her fingertips digging almost painfully into his arms.

His mouth went dry. Except when prompted (usually at length) by her parents, she had not used his name since the day they had arrived in Oxford. He waited, anxious to know what she would say next.

But she said nothing, merely sat there, half in his lap and half on the floor, her fingers clutching at him and her face half-hidden in his jumper. She didn't move, and Severus felt as if he'd been hit by _petrificus totalus_, frozen in place even when his muscles began to ache from the force of their stillness. Some old adage of his mother's came back to him as he sat there in the semidarkness. Wasn't it terribly dangerous to let someone know your real name? It gave them power over you.

He had foolishly given her permission to use his name, and she had ensnared him with it. His mind swam with memory and imagination—her arched back, curving beneath his palms; her eyelashes tickling the side of his neck; her voice, doing more than merely whispering his name.

The spell was so powerful that he'd almost resolved to give up, to let himself look like a fool and confess that she was not as easy to walk away from as he'd attempted to lead them both to believe. Suddenly, though, she was no longer there, but standing up hastily, clumsily, clutching the still-folded jumper to her chest as if it were a shield. Dashing the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, she stared at him for a moment, mumbled something incoherent and apologetic, and fled from the room. The ornaments on the mantel rattled slightly as she ran up the stairs.

Severus buried his head in his hands and cursed himself for a fool.

0 0 0

After a panicked hour lying awake in her bedroom, Hermione pointedly refused to think about whatever it was that had happened—or, more accurately, _not_ happened—on Christmas night. It was Christmas. She was overwrought. He was probably also overwrought, to be fair. They were still under a great deal of stress. They were still recovering from a horrible trauma. As homesick as she was for Hogwarts and for magic in general, she had to imagine that Snape, who had spent far more many years away from Muggles than she, was feeling it even more keenly.

But her heart was Ron's. She was resolute on that. And if Ron turned out to be dead—well, once she had confirmation from a source more reliable than a sadistic Death Eater, she'd consider moving on. But not until then.

For his part, Snape was his regular taciturn self on Boxing Day, nodding gravely to her over the breakfast table when she entered the kitchen and then immediately ignoring her once again in favor of his daily morning crossword puzzle. It was reassuring. He probably felt just as embarrassed about the whole silly affair as she did. Well, one good thing you could say for Snape, he was a mature adult. Ron probably would have sulked and fretted with such blinding obviousness that the whole of Oxfordshire could hardly help but miss it, secrecy charms or not.

The thought of Ron brought back the familiar, lonely heartache that had plagued her for months, and she sighed, perhaps a little more pathetically than she intended to. Snape's head snapped up at the noise, his eyes fixing on her face, studying her intently and without disguise. He caught Hermione's eye and she stared at him. Nobody had ever looked at her with such intensity before. There was such concern, such desire, such a pathetic, hopeless questioning in that look that Hermione was surprised to realize, when he looked down at his crossword again a moment later, that the whole thing had occurred in complete silence and he hadn't said a word. She wondered briefly if he'd attempted to use Legilimency on her, except that it didn't feel a bit like the descriptions of Legilimency that many library books had offered.

She felt like she ought to say something, but hadn't the faintest idea of what she ought to say. It wasn't fair. He had no right to look at her like that. It had been a survival mechanism, a purely physical entanglement that ended as soon as they had escaped and no longer needed it to help preserve their sanity. She loved Ron. Snape was her former professor, her tutor, old enough to be her father.

Unbidden, a memory rose to her mind of the tangy, slightly acrid flavor of his unwashed teeth when she kissed him.

She really ought to say something.

She was saved the trouble of inventing something to say, however, by a knock at the door. The sound made her blood run cold and seemed to sap her of all her powers of action. She wanted to flee. She had to flee. They had found her. But, as if it were some horrible nightmare, she was rooted where she stood. No matter how many times her brain screamed at her to run, she couldn't move.

Snape, on the other hand, was out of his chair before the knocker, whoever it was, had finished rapping on the door. He paused in the kitchen doorway and glanced over his shoulder. When he saw that she wasn't following, he returned and seized her by the hand, dragging her toward the stairs.

With his help, she was able to move again. They ran upstairs together, nearly colliding with her parents in the hallway.

"We heard a knock," said her father, looking far less disturbed by the sound than Hermione felt and Snape seemed.

"I'm sure it's nobody," her mother said, taking Hermione by the arm and beckoning Snape to follow, "but let's put you in the study with the door locked, just in case. I know it won't do much," she said quickly, noticing the doubtful look on Hermione's face, "but it might make you feel better. Wendell, be a dear and answer the door. I'll be down directly."

She led them into the smallest upstairs room, where a desk and bookshelves took up nearly the entire floor, and pulled a small key from her pocket. "Short of magic, this is the only key that will unlock the door into this room from the outside. Keep it with you. I _know_ it won't really stop anybody bent on—well, at any rate, I'm sure it's just a friend. I'll be back soon. Lock the door behind me."

She left them there, closing the door with a soft _click_. Hermione stared at it for a moment, and then locked it, gripping the key tightly in her fist.

"Staying here will do us no good if we have been discovered," said Snape hoarsely.

"Mum wants us here." Hermione squeezed the key a little harder. It dug painfully into her hand.

"I would prefer to know what is transpiring downstairs. A locked door will not protect us if there is any danger about."

"I—" Hermione steeled herself. He was right. And no Gryffindor was going to cower in the back study if a Slytherin wanted to face danger head on—or, at any rate, to spy from the top of the stairs.

She unlocked the door.

It took what seemed an agonizingly long time to open the door, so careful were they to keep the hinges from squeaking. When it was finally open wide enough to allow them to pass, Snape motioned that they ought to stay close to the wall. For a moment, she wondered wildly what protecting her back would matter when she had no wand with which to defend herself from a frontal attack. Then she realized that all he'd meant was that hugging the wall would minimize the chances of making the floor creak as they walked. She felt like a fool.

They crept silently to the top of the stairs. Hermione could hear muffled voices in the living room, but couldn't make out the words over the noise of her own breathing. She held her breath, but it was still nearly impossible to hear.

Snape, however, seemed not to be having the same problem. His eyes were closed, and he gripped the railing of the stairs until even the faintest vestiges of color were gone from his knuckles. He, too, held his breath.

Hermione frowned. If she were going to risk her life in order to hear what was going on, she might as well actually hear it. As carefully and as slowly as she could, she maneuvered her way around Snape and began inching down the stairs. He opened his eyes and glared at her, but didn't dare to speak. She ignored him.

When she was halfway down, she finally found herself able to distinguish the flow of the conversation.

"—or coffee? We've got some left over _stollen _from my cousin in Dresden, let me just see about putting a little platter together." That was her mother. At least whoever it was at the door hadn't come in with wands blazing, killing her parents straight off. Granted, someone who was going to rush in like that wouldn't have knocked on the door to begin with. Hermione heard the kitchen door open and close.

"Do have a seat." That was her father's voice, far frostier than her mother's. Hermione knew somehow that whoever it was down there with her parents, it wasn't just one of the few neighbors who had been let in on the secret of the house's existence.

Someone spoke, but the voice was indistinct, and Hermione didn't dare to creep any closer.

"Better wait for Monica," her father said.

As if on cue, the kitchen door opened and closed again, and Hermione heard the clinking of dishes as a tray was set down.

Hermione felt a sudden irrational terror that her parents were about to intentionally betray them to the Death Eaters. Perhaps it wasn't her actual parents at all. Perhaps it had been an elaborate trap all along. Her heart began to beat faster. Had she asked a question that only her parents could have answered, something that would determine beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was really her mother and father down there in that living room, talking to Merlin only knew whom? She found herself racking her brain for anything her parents had said that a Death Eater couldn't have reasonably guessed at or got by torture.

"It's so lovely to see you," her mother—or _was_ it her mother?—was saying. "Wendell, isn't it lovely?"

Whatever her father—if it really was her father—said, it was indistinct. Hermione moved one step lower on the staircase, trying desperately to hear more. Snape made a hissing noise through his teeth, but didn't stop her.

One of the unknown guests was talking, but so softly that Hermione was still unable to understand it in spite of having moved even closer. Her ears were beginning to feel strange from all the attention she was paying to them as she attempted to channel all of her will into hearing just a _little_ better.

"Let me be sure I've understood you properly," said her father, his voice loud and angry. "You're here, on the day after Christmas, to inform me that my daughter is dead?"

Hermione glanced up at Snape, feeling as if her heart had tripped up and got off-beat. He moved his eyes in the direction of the living room and shook his head, raising his finger to his lips, as if afraid Hermione would cry out or run into the room without waiting to find out who was there. She frowned and nodded, a little insulted by the implication.

"And how are we to know—" her father's voice was even louder now "—that you actually are who you claim to be? We aren't completely ignorant of magic, you know. We know there are still Death Eaters about. You could have taken that—that potion that changes your appearance."

"Polyjuice," breathed Hermione, though they couldn't hear her. She felt oddly proud of her father for even remembering that such a thing existed when he'd had no personal experience of it.

"My dear Wendell," said a strangely familiar voice, sounding both irritated and oddly defeated, "the house is secret-kept. Even had Death Eaters captured and impersonated us, we would have been categorically unable to divulge the secret of your location."

Hermione, exhausted from her sleepless night, pressed her fingers into her forehead, thinking desperately. She _knew_ she ought to recognize the voice of the speaker. It was so familiar, and yet the face that accompanied it seemed to escape her.

"I want proof," said her mother in a tremulous voice. "If our daughter is dead, I want proof. Where is her—her body?"

Hermione wondered if her parents were having the same terrible thought about herself and Snape that she had harbored about them just a few minutes before.

"Her body has not been found," said the unidentified but familiar voice, "but we—they sent us her wand."

"Only her wand?"

She could hear the relief in her father's voice, and she understood it. A body, _her_ body, would mean that the Hermione ostensibly hiding in their study might be someone else altogether. She felt an odd sense of relief as well. Someone had got her wand. Perhaps they even had it at the house. She closed her fist around an imaginary wand handle as she thought about it.

Someone was speaking, too low to hear, and then—

"It's broken," said her mother, flatly. Hermione's heart sank.

"Broken?" That was her father again. "That's not even in big enough pieces to be sure it's hers."

The stranger spoke again. "Ollivander made a positive identification, based on the volume and type of wood, and the remnants of the core. Wendell, Monica, I'm so sorry. I know this is a terrible time, being Christmas and all."

"How long have you known?" asked her father, his voice flat. It seemed he was a surprisingly good actor, when he chose to be.

One of the visitors mumbled something.

"_Months_?" Hermione's mother's indignation was almost palpable. "This is _exactly_ the problem with you wizarding types, ever since Hermione was a little girl. What makes you think we can't handle hearing the truth about our daughter? First trolls and duels and tournaments and then raging megalomaniacal madmen, and then fighting in a war, and not even twenty yet, and you couldn't even have the decency to tell us when you've got word from someone that she's _dead_?"

"Monica," said Wendell, but Hermione's mother was not to be stopped. She was most definitely not play-acting. Hermione suspected that she'd merely been waiting for an opportunity to vent her own anger and fear over everything that had happened, at a moment when Hermione wasn't there to hear, and a suitable scapegoat was.

"You can take your so-called understanding of Muggle culture and shove it up your spotty behind. All of your protecting and lying and avoiding is just as insulting and condescending and frankly offensive as the worst of those Death Eaters, Arthur Weasley."

"Monica!" exclaimed the visitor whose familiar-but-unplaceable voice sounded most aggrieved. Now, though, she recognized it immediately, and felt rather ashamed of herself for having let fear and fatigue keep her from recognizing it before. The Weasleys were almost family. It was a insult to them that she would not immediately recognize Arthur Weasley's voice. After all, he was practically her father-in-law.

And suddenly she realized that, if Arthur were down there in the living room with her parents, Molly and others might be there as well. It had certainly sounded like her parents had been entertaining (if that was the proper word) more than one guest. And of course, they would know, both about Ron and about Harry. They would be able to tell her for sure, and she knew they wouldn't be able to keep the truth from her, even if they tried.

"Hermione," said Snape urgently and softly, as if anticipating her thoughts.

But she hardly heard him. She stood up and ran down the few remaining stairs as fast as she could, bursting breathlessly into the living room and nearly losing her balance as she stopped short and looked to see who was there.

Her parents and Arthur Weasley stood in the center of the room, all looking rather white. And there was Molly, seated on the couch, clutching what Hermione could only suppose were the remnants of her wand—a useless pile of splinters that Hermione feared not even the Elder Wand would be able to repair.

And, standing in one corner, his back to the others, studying the titles on the bookshelf, was a tall, gangly young man with bright ginger hair and freckles liberally scattered over his ears and the back of his neck. He turned as Hermione ran in, and their eyes met.

"Hermione?" he said, his voice cracking as he spoke.

Hardly realizing she was doing it, Hermione began to run again, throwing herself into Ron's arms and burying her face in his dear, freckled neck. "_Ron_," she whispered, so overwhelmed by her emotions that she could barely form the words. "I _knew_ you couldn't be dead. I knew they had to be lying. I knew it, I knew it. Oh, Ron."

"But—I don't understand," said Arthur, slowly, looking from Hermione to her parents. "How—?"

"A question for the ages," said Snape from the doorway. Hermione had been too preoccupied with Ron—convincing herself that he was real, and alive, and _real_—to notice when Snape followed her in, but he leaned against the door frame with his arms crossed, looking every inch the angry potions master in spite of the fact that he was clad in slightly frayed blue jeans and a green Christmas jumper rather than his customary robes.

"But they sent us your body," said Arthur, staring at Snape with even more disbelief than he had at Hermione.

Snape lifted his chin and sniffed contemptuously. "I highly doubt that, as my body is currently residing here and in far better working order than anything I imagine them sending to _you_. Polyjuice or transfiguration of another body explains it well enough. I assure you, I am quite alive, and I am quite myself."

His eyes moved over the room, and Hermione felt a vague, momentary sense of guilt as his peremptory glance fell on Ron and herself. "I see that we were unfortunately misled as to Weasley's status," he said, his tone as acerbic as it ever had been. "What about Malfoy and Potter?"

"Draco and Harry?" said Ron, frowning.

Snape scowled. "I am as aware as I currently wish to be of the younger Malfoy's standing. I referred to his father. We were told that he is currently Minister for Magic—" the Weasleys exchanged glances "—and that Potter is dead."

Hermione, nestling closer into Ron's arms, suddenly noticed that none of the Weasleys would quite meet her eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

DISCLAIMER: All characters seen here are the exclusive property of JK Rowling. She's the genius, I'm the fangirl who can't resist playing with her creations.

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**Chapter 8**

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_There is nothing in the world so wrong but that the spirit of humanity, which is the spirit of love ... may make it, if not right, at least possible to be borne without too much bitterness of heart._  
-Oscar Wilde, _De Profundis_

Severus felt vaguely that the arrival of the Weasleys ought to have been more of a pleasure than it was proving. After all, it made a very neat solution to the problem of when and how to try and make contact with the magical world. And yet, somehow, as he sat in his accustomed place in the living room, awkwardly clutching a plate full of Christmas biscuits in one hand and a saucer and cup of tea in the other, it didn't feel as welcome as he suspected it should.

He had carved out a niche for himself in Hermione's family. Wendell and Monica were as pleasant as his own parents were _not_, and, though he didn't view them as parental figures in the slightest—there were, after all, no more than ten years separating him from them in age—he had come to think of them as something along the line of friends. The arrival of the Weasleys had upset that, at least for him, as thoroughly as if it had never happened. He felt distinctly out of place, sitting there in the comfortable old wingback chair and watching as, directly across from him, Hermione folded her thin little body up and snuggled a little closer into Ronald Weasley's armpit.

Severus felt a formerly-habitual scowl preparing to once again take up permanent residence on his face.

"Having dispensed at last with the requisite Christmas pleasantries," he said, keeping the venom out of his voice as much as possible for Wendell and Monica's sake, "I wonder if you would do us the courtesy of explaining exactly what has transpired since August." He pretended not to see the cool, appraising expression in Wendell's eyes as he looked from Hermione back to Severus.

"Ah," said Arthur.

Severus, who was very carefully not staring at Hermione and Ronald, pretended to ignore the protective attitude with which the Weasley boy squeezed her hand.

"You have to understand, Severus, we looked for you everywhere. There was an entire team assigned to finding you," said Molly regretfully. "But when they dumped your body—well, the body that looked like yours, and thank goodness for that, because we really felt rather lost without you—" he made an impatient motion with his hand, and she sighed before continuing "—we had no reason to suspect it wasn't you."

"I am not accusing you or the Order of anything, Molly," said Severus, surprised to realize that it was true. He recalled the relief in Hermione's voice when she had first been captured, her unguarded joy at knowing he was still alive. It was a painful memory. "I am more concerned with the results of the most recent Ministry elections and the veracity of the report that Potter was killed, questions which you have, for the last hour, refused to answer directly, and which I see as being far more vital than whether or not any of us would like another cup of coffee—with my apologies, Monica." He nodded gravely in her direction, and she gave him a tremulous smile. The Weasleys exchanged glances, and he scowled. Let them be surprised to find that Severus Snape could be a gracious guest to those who unguardedly treated him as an equal and a friend.

"We'll get to politics in a minute, Snape," said Ronald angrily. "Sorry you still haven't got human feelings, but we haven't seen Hermione in four months and I care more about making sure she's okay than about filling you in on old news."

Severus found it incalculably gratifying to see Hermione reward this declaration with a frown.

"I want to know too, Ron," she said, pulling away from him a little. Severus ignored the sudden glow of triumph in his chest. She wasn't so besotted that she'd left _all_ common sense behind, anyway. "You don't know what it was like, having to rely on them for news and not even knowing if it was true or not. I _am_ glad to see you, you know I am, but I want news just as much as Sever—as Snape does."

If anybody else noticed her almost-use of his first name, they didn't show it, although Ronald's ears went a bit pink.

"What exactly did they tell you?" said Arthur cautiously, breaking a biscuit in half and then staring at the two pieces as if he wasn't exactly sure what to do with them.

"Before Hermione's ... arrival ... I received periodic updates on Death Eater victories," said Severus, just as cautiously as Arthur. "Almost immediately afterward, they informed us that your youngest son was killed in action. This, obviously, was patently false." He inclined his head in Ronald's direction. "We were later told that Lucius Malfoy was elected Minister for Magic, and that Potter was captured, tortured, and killed." He closed his eyes, running mentally through the litany of other things they'd been told over the weary months. "We were also informed specifically that Hogsmeade was closed to all half-bloods and Muggle-borns, for reasons of their own safety, that Kingsley and Minerva were either killed in action or wounded gravely enough to be put out of commission entirely—they seemed unsure about that themselves—and that the Wizgenamot, under Malfoy's influence, was debating the passage of a forced-marriage law in the name of half-blood and Muggle-born protection." He opened his eyes again, feeling suddenly as weary as if the past month of respite in Oxford had never occurred. "It was further implied, although not explicitly stated, that the Snatchers had been re-commissioned, and that the Muggle Prime Minister was subject to Death Eater influence, presumably through the Imperius Curse."

"Well, they do say that the best lies have a grain of truth to them," said Molly, in a defeated tone that made Severus's heart sink and Hermione's face go pale.

"Mm," said Arthur, putting down the two still-uneaten halves of his biscuit and brushing some imaginary crumbs off his robes. "Well, it's both better and worse than they told you, Severus."

"Better _and_ worse?" echoed Wendell suspiciously. "I'm with Severus, Arthur. It's about time we had a full explanation of what's been going on."

Arthur sighed. "We heard from Rodolphus Lestrange two days after Hermione was taken. He told us that she was alive, and that if we didn't capitulate to his demands, they would kill her and make her death known publicly. I'm sorry," he said, turning to Wendell and Monica, "but what could we do? Negotiating with Death Eaters has never ended well, historically speaking, and as far as we knew, she might have been dead before Lestrange ever contacted us. To be honest, I'm not sure why he _didn't_ kill her."

Severus felt privately that anybody really familiar with Rodolphus Lestrange could have explained it well enough. He enjoyed torturing her more than he could ever have enjoyed merely killing her. Looking at Monica's pale, horrified face, however, he couldn't bring himself to say it aloud. If Draco had risked Lestrange's—and presumably his father's—wrath to help them escape, they had probably been slated for execution at last.

"Anyway," said Arthur hastily, "we had a tough time of it in the Order for a while after that. Harry and Ron were all for hunting down Lestrange and forcing him to tell us where you were, Hermione, but Kingsley and Minerva wouldn't stand for that. And rightly so, if you don't mind my saying it. You know we love you like our own daughter, but the Order decided that you wouldn't want us to compromise our principles in order to rescue you."

Hermione nodded. Ronald's ears went from pink to red, but he said nothing.

"Lestrange wanted more concessions than we could possibly give him. In exchange for Hermione's life, he demanded a ceasefire and full amnesty for all remaining supporters of You-Know-Who, as well as release of prisoners from Azkaban and a substantial ransom. I think he knew it would never happen, and I still doubt very much whether he would have released her even if we let him have what he was after." Arthur seemed to be saying it more to Ronald and Molly than to Severus, who didn't need convincing. Indeed, he was fairly impressed by Arthur's perception.

"They sent us her wand a week later," Arthur lowered his head, which had, since Severus had last seen him, gone far more gray than ginger, "and they announced publicly that Hermione had been tortured to death as a direct result of the actions of the Order. You can't even imagine what it was like after that. Hermione is so well-known—a war hero, a member of the Order of the Phoenix, one of the best friends of Harry Potter, recipient of the Order of Merlin—it was a huge blow to everyone. And Lestrange played it well. There were so many people who were just war-weary, who wanted to believe that if we gave the Death Eaters what they wanted, they'd really just quiet down and let things go back to normal.

"It was national news, of course. Lestrange made sure it was. And the country split. A lot of purebloods, even purebloods who didn't support You-Know-Who or his policies, began to think that we ought to give up the hunt and just let things settle down. We might have held out, except that then they dumped something that looked like your body, Severus, in the middle of Diagon Alley. The Ministry insisted on a state funeral—an honor to you, but a foolish decision, because all it did was inflame people even more. The country split completely: the Order, half-bloods, Muggle-borns, and a small proportion of purebloods on one side, and the so-called pacifists on the other, demanding that we let the Death Eaters have everything they wanted, for the sake of peace."

Severus frowned. "What do you mean, 'the country split'?"

"Civil war," said Arthur. "Split more or less on geographical boundaries, as it happens. The southern and western parts of the country didn't see as much action during the last eight years, mainly because You-Know-Who was so focused on the Ministry, Dumbledore, and Harry."

"The so-called pacifists," interrupted Molly, her voice bitter, "seized the Ministry. They weren't exactly lying to you, Severus. Malfoy _is_ Minister—of half the country."

Arthur laid a hand on her knee. "We've moved the center of our government to Hogsmeade. Kingsley's serving as provisional Minister, for now. No, he wasn't killed, though he _was_ seriously wounded, and they've been noising it about that he's dead. Minerva ... is under the care of Madam Pomfrey. It's unclear at this point whether she's going to pull through, but we've high hopes."

Hermione shifted in her seat. "You've set up in Hogsmeade? Have they got London, then?"

"The city's split in half. They've got the Ministry building and St. Mungo's. Diagon Alley is as close as it gets to neutral territory, although you'd be unwise to go there alone regardless of what side you're on." Arthur ran his hands through his hair, leaving it rumpled and standing on end. "I don't know that you can rightly say we're any closer to the end of the war than we were after the Battle of Hogwarts."

"I _knew_ Malfoy was still a Death Eater," said Hermione, sounding as bitter and angry as Molly had.

Arthur shook his head. "That isn't entirely clear. Malfoy is, above everything else, a Slytherin—with apologies to you, Severus—meaning that he's a consummate opportunist. Malfoy's out to protect his own interests. If that means compromising with Lestrange, that's what he'll do."

"Draco said—" Hermione began, but Arthur cut her off, his voice sharp.

"You spoke with Draco Malfoy? When?"

"It was Draco who assisted us in our escape," said Severus. "He led us to believe that Lucius would hunting for us, with a view toward returning us to our captors."

"We were in communication with Draco Malfoy until just over a month ago," said Arthur. "It's been unclear exactly where his father's loyalties lie, but it's become painfully obvious that once he started compromising with Lestrange, he had no choice but to continue to do so."

"I find it difficult to believe that Rodolphus Lestrange would have dealings of any sort with Malfoy after the events at Hogwarts," said Severus, "unless he somehow managed to convince the Death Eaters that his and Narcissa's contribution to the fall of the Dark Lord was some sort of ploy, which is not," he added, "an entirely unimaginable proposition."

"Before we lost contact, Draco gave us reason to believe that Lestrange is forcing Malfoy's hand."

Severus raised his eyebrows.

"You see," continued Arthur, "they also have Narcissa. That we know for sure. They have her, and she's alive, or was a month ago. They haven't bothered sending news of that to our side; we were getting it from Draco." His voice grew angrier. "We knew this is what he would do. Once it became clear that Malfoy and his allies would compromise if they had sufficient motive, it only served to prove to Lestrange that his tactics were effective."

They sat in silence after this pronouncement. Severus felt the weight of the unknown shift in his mind as it became the known. Nobody looked at anybody else.

"What about Harry?" Hermione's voice seemed small as it broke the silence. Severus looked away, but not quickly enough to avoid the sight of Ronald's hand guiding her head back onto his shoulder.

"Everything will turn out all right, dear," said Molly, reaching across to where they sat and patting Hermione gently.

Hermione, however, was having none of it. She shied away from both Weasleys, a rebellious flash in her eye that warmed Severus's heart. "You mean he's dead?" she said, her voice choked with emotion.

"Not dead," said Arthur quickly. "But ... well, he's with Minerva in the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts. They hit him with some sort of curse, we don't know exactly what it was, but he's in some sort of coma." His eyes moved to Severus. "Perhaps now that you're coming back, you'll be able to help him."

"Perhaps." Severus looked down, studying his hands. "I will certainly do all that I can to aid the cause. However," he looked up again, setting his jaw, "I will need a new wand. And ... it may take me some brief amount of time to recover fully from the effects of such a long incarceration without access to magic."

"You're definitely going back, then?" said Monica, who had sat in silence throughout Arthur's long recounting. "What about Hermione?"

"_I_ am certainly returning." Severus felt the briefest of sighs escape him and knew that he would probably live to regret forsaking his sanctuary, however limited it was.

"Hermione, I don't think you're in any shape—"

"I've got to, mum," said Hermione, glancing quickly at Severus. "I can't stay here at home while they keep fighting the war without me. You knew I'd have to go back at some point."

"But not _yet_," Monica pleaded. "You're still so weak. What if we lose you again?"

She seemed to grit her teeth. "I'll recover faster with magic, and if I die—you've _got_ to accept it as a possibility, mum, it's already come close to happening more times than I can count—if I die, then—then you ought to be proud to know that I died for my country."

"For your _wizard_ country," said Monica, as scathingly as she could while close to tears.

"For _your_ country," said Severus, before Hermione could respond. "I fully sympathize with your desire to keep Hermione home and safe, Monica, but she's right. We need her, and she will be unhappy if she remains here while the rest go back to fight. And, if we lose this war, you will ultimately suffer as greatly as any witch or wizard."

"We were told the war was over," said Monica.

Severus didn't wait for Hermione to prevaricate or the Weasleys to justify. "You were misinformed," he said.

0 0 0

It took less than an hour for Hermione and Snape to gather up their things in readiness to return to Hogsmeade with the Weasleys. It took a bit longer than that to say goodbye to her parents, and Hermione was unsure which pained her more deeply—her mother's tears, or her father's stoic, resigned silence. As for Snape, he lurked in another room until she and her parents had said all there was to say, and then entered at the last minute to say goodbye.

It didn't entirely surprise Hermione that her mother wept for Snape's departure as well, or that she refused to let him go without a long, tight hug, which he bore with reasonable composure. At times it had seemed to her that her parents found Snape easier to talk to than their own daughter, a thought that made her uncomfortable and a little jealous.

The man now known as Wendell Wilkins shook Snape's hand firmly. "Listen, Severus," he said, catching Snape by the eye, and lowering his voice so that Hermione could barely hear it. "The Weasleys mean well, but we don't know them like we know you. You've protected Hermione so far. I'm trusting you to take care of her out there."

Whatever Snape said in reply, Hermione didn't hear it. Ron chose that moment to tap her on the shoulder and ask if she had anything else she needed him to carry down from upstairs, when he knew full well that she didn't. She did her best not to be annoyed.

"I take care of you just fine," muttered Ron _sotto voce_, as he busied himself very loudly doing nothing.

Hermione decided that she'd prefer to continue being happy to see him rather than to be irritated by his jealousy of Snape, which was, after all, completely unwarranted. Or at least, unwarranted as far as Ron knew, which was really the point. She and Ron were reunited, her loyalties lay solidly with him, and whatever had happened in that terrible cave could remain behind her in the darkness and be forgotten, as it ought.

"Ready, everyone?" said Mr. Weasley, sticking his head out the front door to make sure nobody was looking in their direction—which of course, nobody was, as the house was secret-kept. "Excellent. Monica and Wendell, if you'll just step back, we're going to be traveling by Floo. Quite simple, really, but I hear it's a bit startling for Muggles who have never seen it before. I just got word back that they've hooked you up to the network for the next fifteen minutes."

Her parents obeyed, looking bemused. Mr. Weasley produced a small box from somewhere inside his robes, took a pinch of glittering green powder out of it, and passed it to Snape, who followed suit and passed it to Hermione.

"Is it safe?" said Snape sharply, before Hermione could open her mouth to ask.

"We've got several of the people from the Floo regulation offices on our side," said Mr. Weasley. "It's really two separate networks now. Safe as houses. Still, if it makes you feel any better, I'll go first, just in case. Hog's Head Tavern!" cried Mr. Weasley, drawing his wand, throwing the Floo powder into the fire, stepping casually into the suddenly roaring green flames, and spinning out of sight.

"All ready to go?" asked Mrs. Weasley kindly. "Make sure you've got that bag held tight, dear, so you don't bump someone else's fireplace and drop it. Severus, you'd better go next, then Hermione, then Ron, and I'll follow last and make sure we leave the hearth tidy. It's a very convenient way to travel," she added, addressing Hermione's parents, "but it _can_ leave a bit of a mess behind, the way the men clump about in the fire."

Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw her mother nod mutely.

Snape hitched his bag a little higher on his shoulder, turned, and bowed low to her parents. His hair, which had been cut so short that in the front it only just barely reached the tip of his nose, fell over his eyes, hiding their expression. Before they could say anything, he turned again, cast the powder into the fire, stepped in after it, and was gone.

It was, Hermione realized, with an odd sensation, the first time they'd been separated by any significant distance in four months. It made her feel oddly tense, and she wondered how much subconscious influence his presence had had on her sense of safety and well-being. Shrugging the question off, she passed the box of Floo powder to Ron and stepped up to the hearth.

"Mum, dad, I love you," she said, swallowing against sudden tears. How long had it been since she'd wanted to cry when saying goodbye to her parents? Usually she couldn't wait to get back to what she considered her real home, but things had changed somehow. They had become more a part of her new life, and less a remnant of the old one. "I'll be in touch."

"We love you, too," said her father, with a somewhat watery smile.

Hermione threw the powder into the fire, waited until the flames turned green, and then stepped into them. The tingle of magic suffused her body, and her doubts about returning to the magical world were momentarily quelled. This felt right and good. She belonged with magic.

"Hog's Head Tavern!" she said, enunciating carefully and being sure not to get any ash in her mouth. Immediately she began to spin, and in a moment she had lost sight of her parents altogether. She caught a few glimpses of other fireplaces, but the spinning began to make her feel a little sick, and she shut her eyes tightly until, just a few seconds later, she found herself stumbling into the cold, stale-smelling back room at the Hog's Head, tripping over her feet, and nearly knocking Snape to the floor.

He caught her and held her long enough to give her a chance to regain her balance. Just as he released her, Ron emerged from the Floo, red in the face and coughing. Mrs. Weasley followed a few moments later.

"I must say," she said, drawing her wand and vanishing the spill of ash that had spread itself out over the floor, "that turned out to be a much pleasanter visit than I thought it was going to be." She tucked her wand away again and pulled Hermione into a fierce hug that seemed to last the better part of a minute. She was a little teary when she finally did let go. "I can't tell you how wonderful it all is to—" she stopped abruptly, evidently unable to continue, and turned away.

Hermione felt Ron's hand slip into hers.

"Well," said Mr. Weasley, after they had all stood there for a moment in somewhat awkward silence. Hermione supposed they were wondering exactly what one says to someone who's just returned from the dead, as it were.

"I require a wand, Arthur," said Snape, all business and evidently not about to suffer any more tears in his presence. "Immediately, if possible."

"Of course," said Mr. Weasley, sounding relieved to have a new topic introduced. "As it happens, that will be an easy enough problem to solve for both of you. Ollivander decided to bring his shop here rather than re-establishing in Diagon Alley. I have to say," he added, a trifle more cheerfully, "some of the best are on our side if only because the Death Eaters weren't smart enough to treat them well when they had dealings in the past. Ollivander refused to stay even in neutral territory for risk of being too close to them." Without warning, Mr. Weasley pulled out his wand and rapped both Hermione and Snape smartly on the head with it. Hermione felt the sensation of something icy-cold and wet dripping down her head and, watching Snape slowly disappear before her eyes, she concluded that they'd been disillusioned.

"What about Gringotts?" asked Hermione curiously, blinking as they stepped out of the perpetually murky Hog's Head and into wintry daylight.

"Officially a neutral zone. The Goblins are staying well out of it, at least for now. Granted, there still aren't many people just popping round to Wizarding London these days, but we're finding ways to work around it. Ollivander will be able to withdraw funds directly from your Gringotts account, if that's what you're worrying about."

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "I've only ever paid gold directly before."

Mr. Weasley shrugged. "Most of us prefer it that way, but direct-from-Gringotts debit is becoming more popular, with the way things are in Diagon Alley. Right, here we are, Ollivanders."

The new Ollivanders premises was just around the corner from the Hog's Head, in a squat little building with a thatched roof. Hermione found herself hoping that there were plenty of fire-retarding charms on it, given the approved method of testing wands for fit. He seemed to have simply transplanted the sign and window display from the London premises, without so much as brushing the dust off the wand in the display case.

"Well, well, well," said Ollivander, looking up as the group entered the store, "Hermione Granger and Severus Snape. We were informed that you'd been killed." He blinked owlishly at their invisible forms through his improbably thick spectacles. "Come here," he added, pointing his wand at each of them in turn and lifting the disillusionment charm. Hermione kept her exclamation of surprise to herself.

"Not killed yet, Ollivander. The wizarding world has yet to meet fortune that great," said Snape dryly.

"Put a sock in it, you great git," muttered Ron, so quietly that only Hermione could hear. She jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow.

"Be that as it may," said Ollivander vaguely, "if you'll step this way, Mr. Snape, we'll just get you fitted up again." His ubiquitous magical measuring tape was already curling itself around Snape's ankle and crawling its way up his body. "I notice," said Ollivander, without looking at the tape at all, "that you've grown another inch since the last time I sold you a wand."

"I was sixteen," said Snape, raising his eyebrows.

"Very true, very true," said Ollivander, in a misty voice that reminded Hermione a bit of Professor Trelawney. "Ten inches, ebony and unicorn hair. Solid. Particularly good for potions, well, hardly a surprise there."

The measuring tape had found its way up to Snape's neck and was busy measuring its circumference. Snape's face went from sallow to sheet-white, and he convulsively ripped it off his neck and threw it away from his body as if it had burned him. Ollivander, busy digging through the piles of boxes on his shelves, didn't even notice.

Hermione tried to catch Snape's eye, to offer some sort of mute reassurance, but he refused to look in her direction. Very well. Let him be as Snape-ish as he liked. She didn't care. She scowled and directed her attention to Ollivander instead.

"Let's give this one a try, shall we?" he was saying, extending a slim box in Snape's direction. "Yew, twelve inches, unicorn hair. Quite flexible."

Snape opened the box and wrapped his long fingers around the wand handle. Hermione held her breath expectantly, but nothing happened, and a moment later, Snape dropped the wand unceremoniously back on its cushion and closed the box again. "I think not," he said.

They repeated the performance perhaps a dozen times, Ollivander moving faster and faster through his piles of wands. At last, he produced yet another of the ubiquitous boxes, practically glowing with excitement. "Oak and phoenix feather," he said, sounding a little breathless, "nine and three-quarter inches."

Even from several feet away and with next to no experience in selecting wands, Hermione knew that this one was different. The air fairly tingled with magic as Snape opened the box and withdrew the wand. The oak was highly polished and stained dark, and it seemed to vibrate a little bit as he picked it up—she wondered why she'd never noted before that he was left-handed—and gave it just the briefest of flicks. Rather than the shower of sparks that Hermione was expecting, the wand produced a thin, sinuous stream of translucent emerald-green smoke, which curled itself into the shape of a tall, graceful tree, and then dissipated.

"Perfect," breathed Snape, his eyes fixed raptly on the wand and a curiously unguarded expression of pleasure on his face. Then, abruptly, he was Snape again, more so than he had been in months, and any vestige of the man Hermione thought she'd grown close to seemed to have disappeared. He tucked the wand into his sleeve and returned the empty box to Ollivander. "You may bill my Gringotts account. I believe you still have the information on file."

"Naturally," said Ollivander, who already seemed to have lost interest in Snape. The measuring tape was busying itself in determining the exact length of each spike of Hermione's still too-short hair. "Now then, young lady, you do seem to run through wands at a somewhat alarming rate."

Hermione felt her face go hot. "I'm quite careful with them, actually," she said, feeling suddenly guilty. "Only—" but she stopped, unsure of what exactly there was to say. The measuring tape constricted around her neck, and she understood why Snape had felt a need to yank it away. She was still jumpy enough to fear, even if only for a few seconds, that at any second Ollivander might snap his fingers and have the thing strangle her. Before she could pull it off, it slithered down and began to circle itself around her breasts in a sort of figure-eight. Her face got even hotter. Ron smirked.

Snape, who had been turning his new wand around in his fingers, glanced up and scowled.

They repeated the wand selection process without any further comments on Hermione's tendency to get her wands lost or hopelessly broken. It took only five tries before Ollivander identified one that seemed perfect—Birch and unicorn hair, eight inches, bendy. Hermione felt so exultant over it that she felt like throwing her head back and laughing. She satisfied herself with grinning widely at everyone who looked her way, including Snape, who raised his eyebrows and then permitted himself to smile back, if only briefly.

"Now, Ollivander," said Mr. Weasley, when they had finished arranging payment, "I hardly think I need to tell you that for now we need to keep this a secret. It's for the Order to decide what information we're going to make public."

"Naturally, naturally," said Ollivander with forced cheer, but his jovial persona seemed to have fallen away for the moment, and he looked scared.

"Can you disillusion yourself, or shall I do it for you?" asked Mrs. Weasley solicitously. Snape had already performed the charm and vanished.

"I've only done it once or twice," admitted Hermione, galled to concede her inexperience at something—even a post-NEWT level charm that many people never learned—in front of Snape.

Mr. Weasley obligingly disillusioned her again, they waited a few seconds for the charm to take full effect, and then all stepped back out into Hogsmeade.

They trudged back to Hogwarts in relative silence, walking in a clump with Hermione and Snape at the center so as to disguise their footprints in the snow. She was glad to be disillusioned. How many months had it been since she'd been outside, barring that one, terrifying and exhilarating day of running from wherever-they'd-been to Oxford? Being outdoors felt strange and unsafe, and she was glad when they finally crossed the threshold of Hogwarts. Here, at least, there were four walls around her at any given time, and the sunlight wasn't so mercilessly direct.

Students milled about, passing through the entrance hall on their way to somewhere or another. A few looked curiously at the Weasleys, but most just ignored them. The room rang with voices, footsteps, and the pinging sound of jewels landing in piles as House points were awarded and taken away. With the exception of a few deep scorch marks in the stone, it was almost impossible to tell that this had been the site of a battle less than a year previously.

Ron made a subtle movement with his hand, brushing it against the back of her thigh and guiding her wordlessly toward the stairs. The group made their way up, sticking close together to avoid letting Hermione or Snape bump into any students while still invisible, until they arrived at the hospital wing.

This had changed a great deal since Hermione had last seen it. Madam Pomfrey had divided it into two large rooms, separated by a hastily-built wall with a few portraits hung haphazardly on the walls of the first, and nothing at all hung in the second. This had a row of beds in it, similar to that in the first room, each with a curtain hanging by ready to be drawn if the bed were occupied. Kingsley Shacklebolt, Neville Longbottom, Bill, Charlie, Fleur, and Ginny Weasley were all there, standing in a small, silent group with Madam Pomfrey, near the center of the room.

"Arthur, Molly," said Kingsley, in a low voice. "We got your Patronus. What's going on?"

Mrs. Weasley seemed to be about to burst from suppressed excitement. Hermione saw the others eyeing her curiously, evidently wondering what it was that the Weasleys needed to tell them so urgently.

"Only this," said Arthur, gesturing with his wand into what Hermione knew must look like thin air. Instead, though, two disillusionment charms faded again, and Hermione and Snape became visible once more.

There was a series of audible gasps, followed by a flood of handshakes and hugs all around—even for Snape, who at least bore them, even if he didn't return them. Mrs. Weasley began to cry again, as did Madam Pomfrey. Ron shoved his hands in his pockets and grinned.

"But what happened?" said Kingsley, several minutes later. "We thought—"

It took only a few minutes to explain the actual truth of things. By the end of it, the adrenaline of returning to Hogwarts was beginning to wear off, and Hermione was starting to feel her exhaustion. A bone-deep ache had settled into her joints, and her head was pounding. She opened her mouth to ask if she could just sit down somewhere, but nothing came out. Instead, the room started to spin. She clutched at Ron for support as everything began to go black.


End file.
